


ad astara

by Areiton



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Angst with a Happy Ending, Astronauts, Breaking Up & Making Up, Commander Rogers, Established Relationship, Eventual Happy Ending, Fix-It of Sorts, Getting Back Together, M/M, Outer Space, POV Steve Rogers, Protective Steve Rogers, SHIELD is NASA, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2020-12-14 17:55:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21019865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: The first time he kissed Tony Stark, the stars danced overhead.





	1. Earth

**Author's Note:**

> This is the Ad Astara au literally no one asked for but I couldn't shake. Enjoy??

**Earth **

Peter Parker is waiting, when he comes in from his morning run. 

The kid’s grown up in the four years since Steve last saw him, filled out his lanky frame with lithe muscle. His curls and anxious eyes and twitching fingers still give away his young age, and the way he almost vibrates in place still tell an impossible to miss story. It makes Steve feel, suddenly, impossibly, old. 

“Peter,” he says, evenly, and Parker bounces up from the dewy cold steps. Steve keys open the brownstone and resigns himself to his morning guest and what news he has. 

He pours himself a glass of orange juice and closes his eyes for a moment, head tipped up to the sun. It’s going to be a beautiful day. 

“What’s Tony done now?” he asks. 

~*~ 

The rolling power outages have been devastating the East coast weeks, rolling out across the heartland and slamming hard into the Western seaboard. Things will stabilize, for a few days, long enough that life begins to feel _ normal _ and then it starts all over again. 

“Do you know about the Needle?” 

Steve tips his head to look at the kid. He’s using his thumb to gather crumbs, and eyeing the last of the bacon Steve hasn’t bothered to finish, and he nudges the plate across the table at him. 

“I’m retired. I’m not uninformed,” he says, and Peter flushes, hot. He’s always been prone to that, Steve thinks, fondly. 

“Sam was on the Needle,” Peter says, softly, “When the first spike hit--it was a solar storm, and it broke atmo--there were five people on the Outpost.” He pauses, “Three more were on the Needle itself, doing high atmo maintenance.” 

“Sam,” Steve says, his voice sharp and demanding, and he wants to reach for his comm unit, wants Bucky’s voice in his ear. 

Living in seclusion always comes back to bite him in the ass. 

“Survived,” Peter says, cutting to the heart of it, and when Steve slumps, fills him in. A wing pack and a cool head and a fifty mile tumble to the earth that he walked away from, shaken, broken ankle and collar bone, but alive. 

“We lost everyone on the Needle,” Peter says, and his voice is shaking, now, vibrating with that anxious intensity that makes Steve want to sit back, want to climb higher into the Rockies, somewhere he can’t be found, even if his best friend did just almost die. 

He doesn’t. He meets Peter’s worried brown eyes, and says it for him, “You lost contact with _ Icarus.” _

_ ~*~ _

The first time he kisses Tony, the stars dance overhead. 

The first time he kisses Tony, they're young--impossibly young, how were they ever so young, babies in college, children in the space program, kids racing to the stars like if they slowed down for a second, they'd vanish. 

Tony was brilliant, incandescently beautiful and lit up with wonder, arguing with their professors in classes and tearing apart the equipment SHIELD provided in the middle of the night, reshaping it into something better, building an AI that could keep up with his brilliant intellect. 

He was breathtaking and fascinating and Steve was smitten.

Tony Stark wasn't just a legacy of the space program, the son of Howard Stark--he wasn't just a child prodigy. He was never _ just _anything, not even to SHIELD who scrambled to keep up with his mind before he blew past them in tech and innovation. 

He was never just anything to Steve. 

"Always told my Ma that the stars were the most beautiful thing in the universe," Steve told him, that night, sitting in an open field, listening to crickets sing and the sound of launch prep in the distance. 

"They're a constant beauty," Tony says. "Anywhere you go in the universe--no matter how far you travel, what planet you come from--the stars are beautiful, here and there." 

Steve had loved the stars since he was a boy, the first time he looked up and saw them and realized the cold beauty is what killed his father. But staring at Tony, head tipped back to stare in awe, face awash in the silver bright light--he fell in love again, with something bright and warm and close. 

The first time he kissed Tony Stark, the stars danced overhead. 

It was fitting then, that the last time he kissed Tony--they witnessed that as well. 

~*~

“SHIELD wants you to come in,” Peter says. Steve is finishing the dishes, and he knew it was coming, that request, knew it as soon as he saw Peter sitting on his front steps. 

“Kid--” 

“Commander, _ please, _” Peter says, and his voice breaks. “You--if you don’t, it’s not just Tony at risk. Please.” 

He twists, looks at the kid. Peter _ isn’t _ a kid, is the thing. He wasn’t even four years ago, when the _ Icarus _launched and he didn’t. He’s brilliant, everything that was promised when he was a fresh faced grad student interning on Luna City. 

And he’s begging. _ Tony’s _ protege is begging.

“I’ll come in and listen,” he says. “I don’t promise anything else.” 

The relief in Peter’s eyes--that is almost as disturbing as the fact that the kid Tony kept in the divorce has come here, to the little house in a little town that no one bothers with. 

He’s a thousand miles from a launch site, a lifetime away from Luna and it feels like his ghosts are closer than ever. 

“I need a shower, before we go,” he says, and turns into his room. He’s absurdly grateful that he never got around to unpacking and decorating. 

There are no tales for Peter to carry back to Tony. 

He turns the water on, icy, and closes his eyes against the bittersweet relief that brings. 

~*~ 

“I have to go to command,” Peter says, piloting the quinnjet into the landing bay. He’s settled the closer they get to SHIELD headquarters, slid deeper into his skin, and now, he’s moving with a quiet assurance and competence that makes Steve think of Tony. 

He pushes that thought away and blinks as his comm pings with a data transfer. “Wilson’s hospital info, if you want to visit and pay your regards,” Peter says. The quinnjet settles with a sigh and he sheds his harness, standing and flicking a look at Steve that is as much a dismissal as it is an invitation. “I’ll call, when command is ready to debrief.” 

Steve nods, and follows Peter down the ramp and out into the hanger, breaking away wordlessly to go to the hospital. 

He gets a few double takes on the mile long walk, but not as many as he anticipated, and no one actually stops him. Four years and a thick beard, he thinks, rueful. 

The hospital is quiet and he bypasses the front desk to make his way to Sam's room. 

Marvin Gaye is playing, low in the dim room and Sam is sleeping, his leg wrapped in a startlingly white cast. 

Bucky is there, too, one hand in Sam’s, the other holding a tablet, hair hanging in his eyes as he reads, looking exactly like he always has. 

“Figures it’d be his sorry ass that dragged you back in,” Bucky says, without looking up and Steve grins. 

“Missed you too, ya jerk,” he says, slipping in and shrugging out of his jacket. Bucky carefully slides his hand free of his husband and stands, pulls Steve into a bone crushing hug. “What the hell is happening out there, man?” Bucky asks, his voice hoarse. 

Steve shakes his head. Sits down next to Bucky on the uncomfortable couch, and nods at Sam. “How is he?” 

“He’s high on the good drugs when he’s awake, so _ he’s _ fantastic. The hospital has generators, so we’re not even feeling the blackouts--but the rest of the country is, and no one is telling us shit. They aren’t even talkin’ about how my husband took a nose dive from the Needle and walked the fuck away. So again, Commander, what the hell is happening?” 

“Not my title, Buck,” Steve says, evenly. His heart thumps, even and steady as he stares at Bucky, at the fear and fury in his best friend’s eyes. “Not my life anymore.” 

“Then why are you here?” Bucky snaps. “Because it’s not for him.” 

Steve is quiet, and Bucky’s eyes narrow. “You’re here because of Tony. That’s the only goddamn person who could drag you off your mountain.” 

“That’s not fair,” Steve snaps, angry despite himself. 

“No, it’s not. But you never much cared for fair, Steve. It’s why you’re up there to begin with.” 

He flinches, and something like sorrow fills Bucky’s eyes, and--

“Cut it the fuck out,” Sam slurs from the bed. 

The change is instant and intense, the anger melting away and the hard set of his shoulders softening as he turns, taking Sam’s hand in his own metal one, and murmuring, “Hey, baby. Sorry, didn’t mean to wake ya.” 

“Stop bein’ stupid,” Sam slurs. “Both of you.” 

Steve drifts closer, and takes in the bruising on Sam’s face, the way he’s held in place by pins and braces and bandages. 

He’s alive. 

He shouldn’t be, his wing pack should have been sheared away by the fall, by the wind force--but he’s alive. 

He sits down, and takes Sam’s free hand. 

“Glad you’re here,” Sam says. 

“Me too,” Steve says, and for the first time in four years--he means it. 

~*~ 

He’s still in the hospital when he makes the decision. 

He’s still got her blood on his hands, and the weight of her body in his arms, and she’s _ gone _, tossed aside like so much space trash. 

He doesn’t say it, not then. 

Not until he’s been discharged, given two months leave for psych and physical recuperation. 

_ Icarus _is still scheduled to launch, and he wonders if they’ll move the launch date, when they realize he’s leaving. 

If they’ll scrub the mission completely. 

He thinks they won’t--that they’ll push on, put someone else in the captain’s chair and shove into the great unknown and he’ll be discarded just like Natasha. 

He tells Tony their first night home. As much time as they spend in space, and on SHIELD bases, the _ home _ they bought after their first anniversary doesn’t feel like home. It feels like a hotel, ill-fitting and well-appointed, but not theirs. 

But Tony lazes in his arms in the bath, long fingers laced with Steve’s across his belly, head tipped back against Steve’s shoulder. There are still bruises on his face, and the water tinges pink from the blood still under his nails. 

“You almost died,” Steve says, soft. 

“It’s dangerous, what we do. We know that,” Tony says, dismissive. 

“I’m not. I don’t--I can’t do it anymore, sweetheart.” 

Not after Natasha. 

Not after the attack on their ship that was so damn _ pointless _. 

Tony is quiet for a long time, until the water begins to cool and he says, softly, “I think I knew--I knew you’d need to stop.” 

Steve wants to ask him. 

He wants to beg him to stay here. To stop chasing stardust and intelligent life. 

He wants him to promise, to offer, without being asked. 

Tony shifts, and kisses him, tasting of salt and water and soap, and Steve swallows all the words he cannot say, that he will not say. 

He’s afraid to hear the answer. 

~*~ 

“What brought you back? Don’t say it was Sam--we both know that’s not true.” 

Steve looks at Bucky, guilt bright in his eyes. “Peter did.” 

Understanding flashes across his face. “Tony then. You’re still his next of kin?” 

“You know why we divorced,” Steve says, tired suddenly. 

He’s exhausted. 

“I know why. Which doesn’t explain why the hell you came when Peter waved an emergency at you,” Bucky says. It’s blunt, harsh, but gently said. “You give ‘em an inch, Stevie--” 

“It’s _ Tony _ ,” Steve chokes. “I--Bucky, I can’t. I can’t sit on that mountain and know something is wrong, and not know _ what. _” 

“If you hear what, you’ll hear what they want you to do. Think you can walk away from the stars twice?” 

Steve closes his eyes and breathes. Concentrates on steadying his pounding pulse. 

“It’s not that,” he says, finally. “I could leave the stars and never look back. I love them, but I’m not going to die for them.” 

He looks at Bucky and sees the understanding there. He doesn’t say it. He doesn’t need to. 

“You’re gonna go back up,” Bucky says. His metal hand is almost vibrating, fear bright in his eyes and Steve looks away. 

He will. 

If they ask. 

“I have to do this,” he says, almost begs. “I have to know.” 

Bucky nudges against him, and Steve slumps against his side, and together, they watch the sunset and the stars wink into sight. 

~*~ 

You breath. 

FRIDAY reads your stats and the empty vast openness of space that separates you from earth, from Steve, and you breath. 

You stare into nothing, and you remember that too-often quoted proverb about it staring back and you think, it does. 

It stares back, ancient and endless and pitiless. 

You haven’t heard from Mars in two months. 

“Please begin psychological evaluation,” FRIDAY says, crisp and familiar, and you want JARVIS, want _ Steve. _

“I slept four hours,” you begin.


	2. Mission Control

**Mission Control **

“Commander? We’re ready for you.” 

Steve exhales slowly and nods, even if Peter can’t see him. “When do they want me?” 

“Tomorrow. 0900, at HQ. I’ll meet you.” 

Steve nods, and Peter disconnects. Already, SHIELD has absorbed him back into their fold, the mission and the orders and the stars consuming him. 

That’s what SHIELD does, he remembers abruptly. It consumes everything it touches, and spits out shells and dead bodies. 

“Orders?” Bucky asks. 

“I don’t work for SHIELD anymore,” Steve says. “Didn’t you hear--they can’t give me orders.” 

Bucky grins. “Like that ever stopped them.” 

Steve tips his head, acknowledging the truth in that. 

“I’m going to see her tonight,” he says, and Bucky glances at Sam.

"You want me to come with you?" he asks, and Steve hesitates. Part of him wants to say yes, because there is nothing easy about this. Part of him--the part that speaks up--wants to face his ghosts alone. "No. You stay with Sam. He needs you more than she ever did." 

~*~ 

There's a rotunda of pretty arches and wide open sky, and an endless flame. Stars are etched into the marble columns, a star for every soul lost to the black. He could find hers, black and gold, as befit her rank, but he doesn't bother. Talking to a metal star is no more meaningful than talking to the open sky. 

He doesn't even know what to say to her is the thing. He sits in quiet, respectful of the families visiting their dead and the tourists visiting a SHIELD monument, and if some side eye him, murmur about the erstwhile Commander--he is very good at ignoring both stares and whispers. 

"I told myself I wasn't gonna come back. That after the _ Valkyrie _, I was done. And I kept it, Tasha, I kept that promise for five years. Tony divorced me over it--or I divorced him." 

He doesn't think it matters, anymore, who said the word first, who ended what they had built. It ended. Tony wanted the stars, wanted to see what was out there, beyond where man could reach, and Steve...

"I still can't forgive them, for letting you die," he whispers. "But I'll never forgive myself, if I let Tony die too." 

There is no answer. No quiet absolution and blessing. There's only the low wind and the murmur of people who don't understand his loss, and the stars, coming out overhead. 

~*~ 

He and Tony have been dating for a year, have a little apartment filled with equipment and uniforms and a exceptionally useless learning bot, when Steve meets Natasha Romaov. 

"She's from the Russian space program," Fury tells him. 

"She did their first manned mission to Mars," Hill adds. "She grew up in the program, doesn't know anything but the space race." 

"And what's she doing with SHIELD?" Steve says. 

"She defected, when Russia attacked the SHIELD colony on the moon." 

He remembers that. It wasn't classified as an act of war, not when Lunear was considered unclaimable--no man's land and every man's land. 

The wild west, Tony said and Bucky rolled his eyes but didn't disagree. "She's the one who brought us the info?" he asks, reaching for Romanov's file. "She saved--" 

"Luna," Fury says. "And roughly four thousand souls." 

Steve whistles, and looks up at the director. "And you trust her?" 

"I trust you," he says. 

Steve nods and Hill brings her into the room. 

She's tiny, a good six inches shorter than him, lithe in a way that reminds him of a dancer, with bright sharp eyes and sphinx smile that tells him nothing, and her grip is tight on his hand when he stands to greet her. "Commander," she says, her voice smoke and sex. 

"Romanov. Looks like we're gonna go spend some time together." 

She asks, later, when they've been trapped together on the ISS for three months and even Tony can't stand to be around Steve, if he trusts her. 

He turns it over in his mind, this Russian cosmonaut who saved his life on the Needle and twice when doing space walks on the ISS. 

"I trust you as much as I trust Bucky or Tony," he says. "And I'd fight anyone who says I'm wrong." 

Natasha smiles, then, and it's bright and shy and pleased. 

~*~ 

“Commander Rogers.” 

The room is different--long and bright lights and polished metal, the chairs unforgiving and the view--the view is different too. 

A launch pad. SHIELD does more Moon flights than any other entity in the world, and most of them, if Steve remembers right, are commercial. 

He supposes that it’s one way to pay the bills. 

The room is different and the chairs and the view and file slide to him to review--all of it is different. 

Maria Hill flanking Director Fury, and the cold cold way they watch him--that isn’t. That is painfully familiar. 

“Do you know why you’re here?” 

Steve arches an eyebrow. “Pretty sure you brought me here--so tell me and let’s get on with it.” 

Fury’s lips tighten. Then he sprawls in the chair across from Steve, black coat draped dramatically and Steve can almost _ hear _ Tony cackling. 

“Tell us what you know of _ Icarus.” _

_ ~*~ _

The truth was--

The truth was that they went because they could. 

It wasn't resources or practicality or the need to push and see what existed beyond the little blue planet they all called home. 

There were some--Reed Richards and his ilk--who rambled about extra terrestrials, alien life forms with intelligence far beyond any on earth. 

"Do you think they're out there?" Steve asks, once, curious, curled around Tony. 

Tony rewards him with a lithe shrug. "Either there's something and they'll find us or not--or there isn't and we'll never know." 

The universe was vast, so impossibly _big_ that they could search it for a hundred thousand years and still never find anything. 

The _Icarus_ was not looking for intelligent life. 

It was just looking. Pressing the boundaries of human exploration, and pushing to see where space pushed back. 

It was, as so many things that went utterly right and utterly wrong in equal measure--Tony's fault. 

Tony who mentioned it first: SHIELD is commissioning a new shuttle, the _Icarus_. 

Tony who sat over the specs and said, She could go to Neptune. 

Tony who looked at him, sleep deprived and mad hatter grin, We could go with her. 

It was, as so many things in their marriage and careers, Steve who said no. 

"I'm not going back to space," he said, final, steely, unmoving. 

Tony blinked at him the glow of Icarus on his skin, and Steve thinks--that is the moment they broke. 

~*~ 

"The _Icarus _is a long term manned mission to Neptune," he says, textbook recitation. "The first of it's kind, the crew were meant to be held in cryo for the four year flight and spend two in orbit, collecting samples from the planet via robots while scanning the outer reaches of the solar system." 

He pauses and tips a look at them. "Originally, the crew consisted of Natasha Romanov, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, led by myself." 

"The mission was nearly scrapped after the attack on the _Valkyrie. _Instead, command was given to Tony Stark." 

"Your husband," Hill says and Steve's lips twist. 

"Not anymore." 

~*~

"You know, about the Blip," Fury says. Hill is sitting, too still, too quiet. 

"What do you want from me?" 

"You know that people are dying," Fury says, his voice harder. 

Steve stares back, implacable. "You've never cared much about people dying. Sir." 

The director's lips tighten, and Steve asks, "Is Tony alive?" 

Hill is the one who answers. 

She has always been unspeakably brave, he thinks. "We believe so. We want you to talk to him." 

"Why?" 

"Because you might be able to convince him to stop the Blip," she says, gently. Like saying something gently has ever managed to make the words hurt less. 

He stares out, a familiar room and an unfamiliar view, and the vast black stretching beyond. "What do you need from me." 

~*~ 

Testing takes hours. Peter stays nearby, overseeing it and giving Steve an apologetic smile when he isn’t snapping at his staff. 

It’s routine, and he’s been living on the edge of nowhere for five years--SHIELD is obligated to test him, to ensure he is still physically able to withstand the rigors of space. 

He passes the tests. 

Of course he does. The rigors of space weren’t what chased him from the black, and they won’t keep him from going back. 

“Please complete your psychological evaluation.” 

He exhales, slow. The voice is familiar, a musical lilt and computerized coolness and a touch of sass that all of Tony’s creations carried. 

Some children carried their father’s eyes or hair or smile. 

Tony’s--well. 

“Please compete your psychological evaluation,” EDITH says, again, firmer this time, and Steve stirs. Blinks. 

“I have completed the tests laid out by SHIELD and we are on schedule to leave for the moon--” 

~*~ 

“You sure you’re ready for this?” 

Steve looks at Fury, and he’s startled to see concern in the man’s usually blank expression. “Do I have a choice?”

“Sure. We could send Barnes. Parker. Hell, I’m not sure why we haven’t sent Rhodes.” 

Steve smiles, “Because you have me. And because Rhodey won’t go beyond Mars, and everyone knows it.” 

Fury smiles at that, tips his head in agreement. 

“You--I know you aren’t sending me all the way to Neptune. But I need to know, whoever you do send. They’re bringing him home. Alive, Fury.” 

He meets Fury’s gaze, dark eye sharp and intent. The nod comes slow--but it comes. “We bring him home,” Fury says, slowly. 

He turns to go and then, “You’re wrong--Rhodes will go beyond Mars. He just needs the right motivation.” 

~*~ 

Rhodes gives Tony away. 

It would, if the wedding were public and a tiny thing they managed to keep even off of SHIELD’s radar, cause an uproar. Tony Stark, the son of SHIELD’s greatest mind, a innovator and explorer, given away by a man who clawed his way up the ranks of the Air Force and SHIELD and had no name or family to trade on, who--so many said--was riding Tony’s coattails to space. 

No one said that in front of Tony. Not after he beat a reporter with his own damn camera, for insinuating it. 

He was sued for five million for that little stunt and settled out of court for three and community service and never once complained. That’s when Steve really understood--Rhodey was special. 

Rhodey _ mattered. _

He got the shovel talk and knew that Bucky gave Tony his own version, lazy with that thousand yard stare. He got, as Rhodey learned to like him, stories about Tony that he didn’t know, the stories that peeled back layers of the SHIELD wunderkind, and left only _ Tony. _

Rhodes gives Tony away. 

He stands there, in front of the altar with their friends arrayed behind them, dark eyed and handsome and he kisses Tony gentle on the cheek, murmurs something low enough only Tony hears it and it startles a giggle out of the smaller man. Rhodey’s gaze cuts to Steve and he says, simply, “Take care of it.” 

Steve--nods. 

There’s nothing else to do. 

And later, when Tony dances, his cheeks flushed and laughing, with Pepper, he’s only a little surprised to find Rhodey at his side. “You will, won’t you? Take care of him.” 

“Always,” Steve says, young and stupid and still believing always is a possibility for people like them, for people like Tony. 

“If you don’t--nothing, not even space, can keep me away from you.” 

He looks at the Colonel, a man no one in SHIELD took serious, until he outranked enough of them to give his own orders, a man who was only in SHIELD to protect and stay close to Tony, and he thinks--Tony has one _ always _ right here. 

He nods, “I understand.” 

Rhodey nods, and claps him on the back, and Steve wonders, as he walks away, making his way to Pepper and Tony, if he truly _ does. _

~*~ 

He remembers his first Moon flight. He remembers sitting in a chair too big for him and the promise Erksine had made and his heart beating too fast in his chest. 

He remembers being terrified, as afraid of where they were going as what they were going to do. 

He remembers the way the shuttle shook and Mama clutched his hand and Erksine smiled, all calm unconcern. 

It ended well--a picture perfect landing outside of Luna, a view of Earth, brilliant against the black. 

He doesn't remember the thousands of Moon flights after that. 

He doesn't even remember the last one he took--he thinks maybe he slept through it, a short six hour shuttle flight, an overpriced, stratchy pillow under his head and Natasha's blood under his nails. 

He doesn't remember the last flight or the countless flights between this and his first flight. 

But this feels like that. Peter dozes next to him, sleeps through the smooth, too loud takeoff. 

He sees the Needle, decimated and hanging limp as they blast past it, and space, _ space _ opens up in front of them, the familiar weightless sensation taking him for the heartbeat before the anti-grav measures kicked in and grounded the passengers. 

"Commander Rogers? Can I get you anything?" the stewardess asks and he shakes his head and stares out the window, at the endless black and the blue planet they call home, growing smaller as they rocket through the empty. 

He memorizes every damn detail, and clutches it like a lifeline. 

~*~ 

“Boss, incoming transmission.” 

You blink. 

Neptune looms, impossibly large, impossibly beautiful, eating up your view. There is a part of you that wants to ask her, _ who _ is reaching across the void. 

Who wants you. 

No one wants you. 

Isn’t that why you came here, to this place on the edge of humanity’s reach, where no one has dared come. 

Didn’t you run, just to know he wouldn’t chase? 

“Boss, incoming transmission.” 

You flick the comm off and FRIDAY goes silent. All you hear is the rush of blood in your veins, the thump of your weak heart, the rasp of air, filling the suit, sliding down your lungs. 

Neptune looms, impossibly large, impossibly beautiful, eating up your view. There is a part of you that wants to slip your teather and let high atmo take you, drag you down down down. 

You close your eyes and somewhere, distantly, an alarm that sounds like _ Peter _ clamors, a shrieking that digs knives into your brain. 

You blink and Neptune vanishes. 

You flip your comm. 

“-ss, respond. Respond, boss!” 

“Here,” you say and your voice is raspy, digs and cuts in ways that leave you startled. “Here, Fri. I’m here.” 

A silence, heavy with her disappointment, and you shuffle that aside. “Kill that alarm, huh?” 

“Oxygen low,” FRIDAY says, pointed, and you smile and begin your way back into the _ Icarus. _

“FRIDAY, play transmission.” 


	3. The Moon

**The Moon **

Steve sleeps through the landing. 

They're smooth now, a routine managed by AI and robots and a thousand flights a month. 

He wakes to a hand on his shoulder, an anxious flight attendant and Peter smirking, and blinks. For a moment, with the weightless feeling and the taste of the filtered air that is unmistakable as anything but Luna--for a moment he forgot. 

He wakes to a hand on his shoulder, apologetic eyes and a shit-eating grin and it aches because for a moment, in that delicate forever between dreaming and waking, stars suspended behind his closed eyes, he forgot that Tony isn't at his side. 

~*~ 

Luna is exactly as he remembers, and he steps into customs with Peter, the younger man murmuring into his comm, and flicking through the tablet in his hand. Steve's hands itch, empty and open at his side. He thinks, longingly, of the empty road and the pound of his feet against the gravel and the trees spearing the skies, the place he made his own and the endless little nothings that made up every day, made up a life that he had made his peace with. 

"Purpose of your visit?" the pretty SHIELD agent stares at him, and she's good, good enough that the hero worship doesn't flicker in her eyes. 

Peter tenses at his side, and he smiles, thin and false. "Pleasure." 

She feeds his credentials into her system and they spit back at her, and she smiles. "Please mind the Zones--SHIELD and Luna personnel will not protect you in the Zones." 

SHIELD was never good at protecting anyone. 

~*~ 

Luna has grown. 

It sprawls beyond the narrow walkway, a domed city, three thousand souls in residence, another two thousand tourists at any given time. 

Luna's slopes were the new Aspen, Tony said. 

They'd never bothered to go. Talked about it, a few times, with Nat. But Luna's appeal wasn't the gravity fields and the rocky slopes or even the Crater--it was the launch pad, the jumping off point. 

Luna is a gateway drug, Nat teased. 

He thinks they were both right, but he thinks maybe they were wrong too. 

Luna wasn't a gateway or a tourist trap and it was both. 

But it was this too, and most important: it was home. 

He doesn't look for their little house, there on the edge of the city, on the cusp of the Zones. 

He doesn't look because he doesn't need to. 

~*~ 

Peter leads him into temporary quarters. "The Mars launch site is on the other side of the Zones," he says, simply. "We'll go at 0600. It'll be best to move through them during Darkside." 

"How active are the Zones?" he asked. 

"There have been sixteen casualties in the Zones in the past month, Commander," a cool British voice says and Steve smiles, so wide it hurts. 

"JARVIS," he says. "Good to hear your voice." 

"And you as well, Commander. Sir is not presently on Luna or within range. Would you like--" 

"Belay that, JARVIS," Peter cut in sharply. 

"Sir's orders were very clear, young sir," JARVIS says, his voice tipping toward disappointment. 

"Belay, JARVIS," Peter repeats, and softly, "Don't make me use the codes." 

There's a tense moment of silence and then, "Welcome home, Commander. I am, as ever, at your disposal, should you need anything." 

He goes silent and it's different, an empty kind of silence that makes Steve glance at Peter. The kid is staring unhappily at one of the tiny cameras inset in the walls of Luna, the sensors that allowed JARVIS to run the city. 

Luna wasn't just home--it was Tony's creation, his firstborn coded into it's very bones. 

"What was that?" Steve asks and Peter's lips thin. 

He looks away and shakes his head. "I can't tell you." 

"Can't? Or will SHIELD not allow it?" 

Peter's expression tightens and he shakes his head. "Not every bad thing in space can be laid at SHIELD's feet, Commander. And I can't talk about this here." 

Oh. 

He shifts and Peter nods in satisfaction, like Steve is just now *getting it. 

"Rest. I'll be back for you at 1500 to finish your testing." 

He's gone before Steve can argue. 

~*~ 

“Steve,” Tony says, and the breathless way he says it, all burning bright and disbelieving--it pulls him from sleep to stare up at Tony. 

He’s rumpled and there’s grease in his hair and his fingers tremble from caffeine and lack of sleep and his smile is blinding. “Steve, I did it,” he says. 

Steve blinks, rubs at his eyes and rumbles, “Yeah?” 

Tony bounces ahead of him as they pad down the hall to the workshop. It’s lit up with holo screens and DUM-E clicks excitedly when they enter, his claw tipped inquisitively. Steve rubs a hand over his strut fondly and the little bot trills. 

“Say hello,” Tony says, and Steve twists to look at him. He’s hovering in front of a glowing orange ball--it looks like a cross between a burning star and a brain firing and he thinks that makes sense, given it’s creator. 

“Hello?” 

“Good evening, Captain. May I be of service?” 

He considers that, and then, “I don’t suppose you know how long this idiot has been awake?” 

Tony sputters and JARVIS--JARVIS’ tone changes, shifts to just barely stiff. “According to the updates in my coding, Sir has been awake for thirty two hours and seven minutes. Perhaps sleep would be beneficial?”

Steve grins, and tugs Tony into him, and they stand there, wrapped around each other in the glow of JARVIS’. “He’s amazing,” Steve murmurs into Tony’s hair. 

“He’s gonna change the universe,” Tony whispers back, and Steve doesn’t argue--he’s always known Tony’s brilliance would light up the endless black. 

~*~ 

The tests on Luna are different. A familiar difference, dexterity in his suit and zero grav and stimulated space walk and a firearms test. 

None of the endless treadmills and stress tests that SHIELD inflicted on him, earthside. 

It’s exhausting in a way that’s familiar and pleasant and makes his heartache because Tony isn’t bitching at his side, Natasha isn’t laughing and breathing Russian curses and needling them both to do more faster better. 

It’s familiar and it’s easy and it’s hard. 

And when it’s over, when he is sweat stained and tired and his tongue is thick and slow, EDITH says, “Please complete your psychological evaluation.”

He breathes. 

It used to be easy. 

This--the mental testing. He knows what words to say, to get in space. He know what SHIELD wants from him. 

SHIELD wants soldiers, complaint bodies of sound mental and physical health to push back the boundaries of human exploration. Who was hurt in the process never mattered much to them. 

"Please complete you psychological evaluation." 

It used to be easy. 

~*~ 

JARVIS changed SHIELD. 

Tony did--in his way--but JARVIS enabled the space program to flourish. 

He remembers standing in their apartment, JARVIS newborn and sassy. He misses JARVIS. 

"Maintenance required on the shuttle, sir." 

Tony barely stirs and Steve presses a kiss to his shoulder. 

"Let Buck and Nat know, will you?" 

There's a beat of silence, too long and Steve's eyes dart up, to the tiny inset camera where Ultron observes them. 

"Of course, Commander."

He pulls himself from Tony's arms and kisses his petulant scowl on his lips before he shoves into his boots and slips down the hall. Bucky and Natasha are there, already, sleepy and quiet as they suit up. "What are we looking at, Ultron?" Steve asks. 

"A panel is loose on the aft starboard side. I have sent you the location." 

"We need three people to fix a panel?" Tasha asks, disbelieving. 

"The bot going down to the surface needs maintenance,” Ultron says.

Natasha huffs. “Fine. I’ll take the bot, boys. You handle the panel?” 

“You sure?” Steve asks, and leans over to fit her helmet over her head, tucking her long red braid around her throat like a coil.

She grins, and nods. “Sure thing. Tony can make us breakfast.” 

“No one wants that,” Bucky calls, and Steve snorts in laughter. “Ultron, no one wants that.” 

Steve lets Bucky fit his helmet down, and clips his tether to his best friend, while Natasha’s lies in a loose spool on the ground. 

“Ready?” he asks, the HUD lighting up, and they both call back, serious now. 

“Ready the airlock, Ultron.” 

The ships shudders and hisses and he feels his heartbeat shift, just a little. “When we’re clear, open the outer door.”

“Opening in five. Four. Three.” 

Natasha grins and shifts, and he sees her smile. 

“Two. One.” 

“See you in a minute,” she says and the door opens. 

~*~ 

There’s a familiar face on the rover, when he arrives, and he startles, a little. “I thought you’d settled on Mars,” he calls and Clint twists to look at him, something dark flickering in his eyes for a moment. 

Then he’s grinning, broad and yanking Steve into a hug. 

“I knew Fury was tryin’ to get your ass up here, but I didn’t think he’d manage it. It’s good to see you, Commander.” 

“Temporary,” Steve clarifies. “What are you doing here?” 

Clint nods at the rover. It’s a few seats on wheels, no protection, no frills--nothing but speed. “I’m your escort.” 

Steve pauses. “You’re running security in the Zones now?” 

“It’s work. And I’m not beholden to SHIELD,” he shrugs. “Just took this job for you and the kid.” 

“Stop callin’ me that,” Peter grumbles, coming up on one side. “It gives me a complex when _ you _ think you have your shit together more than I do.” 

“I’m offended, Parker,” Clint says lazily and Peter snorts. Twitches to look at Steve, expectant. “You ready, Commander?” 

His bag feels too light on his shoulder and he wants answers, wants to know why SHIELD is going out of it’s way to surround him with his own people and what happens when they get to Mars--

The moon is shifting, Darkside creeping up on them and he knows that even if he asks--no one is going to answer his questions. 

So he doesn’t bother to ask. 

“Let’s go,” he says, and slides onto the rover. 

~*~ 

Tony used to call the Zones the wild west, but Steve always loved it. The wide open spaces, the quiet beauty of it, the way the Earth gleamed, blue and beautiful. He loved the moondust that clung to the air and the way that when they hit a bump just right, the Rover went weightless, and his stomach lurched, and they floated, just for a moment before they slammed back into the rocky ground. 

He loves, especially, the moment when they went into Darkside, the dark of space plunging over them so deep and heavy it feels like a living breathing thing, wrapping around and choking. 

“Incoming,” Clint says, pulling him from his thoughts and Peter curses. “Keep us moving, kid, I’ll take care of ‘em.” 

He pulls a gun and Steve jolts, because he knows that blaster, knows the way it fits in Nat’s hand, too big and perfect, a tiny hourglass etched into the handle and pressing into her palm. 

“Might get bumpy, Commander.” 

The feral grin Clint tosses him is just as viciously pleased as the one Steve feels on his own lips. 

“Good.” 

~*~ 

It’s bloody and messy and they lose both of their escorts. He gets hit with shrapnel and he can hear Peter cursing with the kind of imaginative skill that could only be learned by long exposure to Tony and it makes his grin kick wide and wild as the kid steers the rover into a field of solar panels. 

The raiders chase and Clint says, conversationally, “They don’t even want anything, you know. Most of the times, if they’re chasing tourists, they just want a few wallets. I think they’re bored.” 

“SHIELD can’t do anything?” 

“Apparently Fury can’t control everyone and the Zones are living proof of that,” Clint grins.”We got word AIM had set up base in there, but we haven’t bothered to root them out. Killian wants to blow himself up in the Darkside, that’s his business. I’m not gettin’ shot over it.” 

“Are they launching anything?” 

“Nah. SHIELD keeps a close eye on that--they work with Russia sometimes, but mostly we control who gets launched out.” He shoots lazily and in the corner of Steve’s visor, a rover bursts into orange flame. “How long we got, kid?” 

“Brace,” he snaps, and Steve clutches tight to the rover as the ground opens up under them and the black swallows them up. 

Clint’ laughs, high and wild and touched with insanity, and Steve wonders--is he holding on? Does he still want to be lost out here, in this endless abyss that stole Nat? 

~*~ 

“You know it won’t be what they’re sayin’, right?” Clint asks. Peter is busy with SHIELD personnel. “They never tell the whole truth.” 

“What do you mean?” Steve asks. He doesn’t trust SHIELD, hasn’t since the _ Valkyrie _\--but there is still an idealistic part of him that wants to believe Fury. 

“They’re _ lying, _Steve. It’s what they do. What they had to do, because if they told you the truth, you wouldn’t have come up.” 

“What do you mean?” 

Clint glances over at where Peter and SHIELD are clustered. The ship will take off soon, a three day flight to Mars, and then--

What. 

“SHIELD said they needed you to contact Tony about the Blip, right? But did they say what happens after that? Did they say how they’re getting him _ home? _” 

Steve’s stomach twists, unpleasant. “Neptune is two and a half _ billion _ miles from home, Steve. You think they’re gonna send another _ Icarus _out? When they’ve got baby Stark waiting in the wings to do what Tony did?” 

“What are you saying?” Steve murmurs, and his voice is harsh, angry--

Terrified. 

“I’m saying--don’t trust SHIELD. Not with Tony. Not with anyone you love. We did that once, didn’t we?” There’s a world of bitterness in his voice and Steve can’t--he _ can’t _ think about it, not now. 

Not with _ this _ clamoring in his brain. 

“Be careful. You’re divorced--but no one in the world believes you don’t love that man, Steve. So take care of him.” 

~*~ 

The papers arrive on a sunny Wednesday. 

The house is still a mess of boxes and drying paint, a renovation site more than a home. 

It’s empty, too. No bots, no AIs, no mind bendingly amazing tech. 

No Tony. 

The papers arrive and he sits down on the stoop and stares at them until they blur, and he’s half blind when he signs them, scrawls his name next to Tony’s. 

He reaches for his phone before he can talk himself out of it. “I signed them,” he says, when Tony answers. “It’s done.” 

There’s a beat of silence, and Tony whispers, “I didn’t want this, Steve. You have to know--” 

“When is the launch?” 

Tony goes quiet, and Steve babbles on, because he can’t quite help himself. “Sam says they didn’t scrub it, that--that it’s gonna be next month. That’s why you rushed it, right? I know--it takes longer than this to get a divorce, Tony. Even when both parties wanted it.” 

“Both parties didn’t,” Tony says and Steve laughs. 

He laughs. 

Because it’s true and it’s not and it doesn’t fucking _ matter. _

“I hope you find it,” he says, when his laughter feels like tears. “What you’re looking for? I hope you find it.” 

Tony is quiet, and he thinks--maybe that’s the problem. 

They were always quiet, after the _ Valkyrie. _

He was quiet and then Tony was and then they both were and when they weren’t--

He shakes his head and hangs up and he doesn’t talk to Tony again, doesn’t hear from him again--not until the _ Icarus _launches and messages are sent to each of the team’s family. 

It takes him over a year, to listen. 

~*~ 

Your bed feels empty. 

You have slept alone for five years, since Steve left you, and it still feels empty. 

“Boss, you need to sleep,” FRIDAY says, gently. 

“Just a little longer, babygirl,” you murmur. Your hands aren’t shaking, and you think if you work for just a few more minutes, you’ll get the drone right, will be able to send it into Neptune’s atmosphere. 

You don’t want to stop, is the thing. 

Because when you lay in that big empty bed where Steve should be--you can’t ignore the loneliness. 

When you dream, you dream of sunshine and coffee warm kisses and _ him. _

“Boss,” FRIDAY says and you look down. U is tugging gently on the drone, pulling it away from you. “Boss, you need to sleep.” 

You don’t want to sleep. 

You don’t want to dream. 

Dreams are cruel. 

And there is this--

Sometimes, when you dream--you never want to wake. 

You never want to leave that place where he still loves you. 

Still. They’re shutting it down, your lab, the ship still and quiet and you sigh. Stumble to your bed and fall into the empty space, and nothing but your pillow catches you. 

“FRIDAY,” you murmur. “Wake me up, ok? Don’t let me dream too long.” 

Her voice is sad, and you think maybe she knows, that maybe you call for him, in your sleep. Your baby AI pities you and isn’t _ that _ a pathetic thought? 

“I’ll wake you, boss. Just rest now. I’m here.” 

You close your eyes and Steve smiles at you. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't checked out the GORGEOUS [fanvid](https://youtu.be/riOs833lhqc) [loverstar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loverstar/pseuds/loverstar) made for this, you should. 
> 
> And I might be changing the chapter count--but I'll let you know when I post the next chapter!


	4. Space

**Space**

Carol Danvers is the captain, smiling wide and pretty for him as he settles into his seat, her smile just a touch mischievous. 

"Not too often we get a bone fide celebrity, huh, boys?" 

Her crew watches him, all dark eyed and wary, and he stares back. He knows these kinds of space cowboys, the ones who fly endless runs to Mars for SHIELD and the good of humanity. 

Rumlow, Rollins--they're dead eyed angry, eaten up with the black, and he doesn't trust them, doesn't trust being out here, with them. 

Clint's warning rattles around, too sharp, in his head and he wishes, just for a moment, that Bucky was at his side. 

Peter is. Sitting anxious now, grinning at Danvers and quietly withdrawn when Rumlow smirks, and it makes something dark and possessive shift in Steve. He stirs in his seat, moves so that Pete is blocked from the other man's view and Rumlow smiles at him. 

It's as empty and pitiless as the black and it makes Steve want to reach for his weapon. 

"You know the SOP, still, Commander?" Danvers asks, and it jars the moment, draws him back. 

There's a comforting familiarity to her movement, steady and sure and easy as anything. 

For a moment, he forgot that this is only strange and unfamiliar to him. That Rumlow, Rollins--Danvers and her co-pilot, even Peter--this is as familiar as breathing, as easy as a flight to New York is on earth. 

Danvers flicks a look at him, assessing and curious and he nods. 

She smirks. "Rest easy, Commander. I could do this run in my sleep." 

Space is a bright spangled darkness in front of them and he leans back in his chair, the harness snug against his shoulders and closes his eyes through the rough rocking, the familiar burn of jet engine and whine of repulsor tech. 

He forgot, how familiar it is, how much it feels like home, and he thinks, as _ Avenger _ lifts off with a teeth rattling roar of noise--this is where he lives. 

Everything else is all just noise and filler. 

He closes his eyes behind his mask and doesn't watch as they go soaring into the stars, doesn't listen to Danvers and her smooth cadence commanding the ship and it's crew, doesn't look to see Peter, pale faced and hopeful and not who he wants. 

He closes his eyes and he wonders how the actual hell he ever thought he could run from this.

How he could run from the stars.

~*~ 

Tony terrified him. 

Not being the first man to walk on Mars. 

Not the endless array of tests on Luna when he was a child and Erksine made him into more. 

Not almost flunking out of college when his mom died. 

Not even his first mission on the Needle, five miles above the surface, caught between gravity and the freedom of space and not sure which would steal him. 

Nothing had terrified him the way that Tony, five foot eight inches of concentrated genius and unparalleled generosity, terrified him. 

Bucky laughed at him, kissed pretty little SHIELD operatives, filled their barracks with a parade of faces and teasing. 

Steve knew Bucky enough to know the revolving door to his bedroom covered the pining for Wilson, the sharp tongued, pretty eyed pilot that wouldn't give Buck the time of day. Tony thought the whole thing was hysterical, climbed over Steve's broad lap to tease Bucky and the night's conquest, all bright smiles and sly innuendo, their notes sprawled around them, the taste of wine and beer still heavy on his tongue. 

Tony was terrifying and beautiful and careless of his space, happily invading it, curling against him in a starlit field and a dark living room and scrambling over him for a stack of notes or a fresh beer or a chances to jab at Bucky. 

It was like Tony forgot he was a person, so comfortable in Steve's presence, so used to the big broad body in his own space that where those spaces began and ended didn't seem to register. 

Tony terrified him because he loved when Tony invaded his space, when he fell asleep curled in Steve's arms and leaned sweet against his shoulder and pressed intently against his thigh during a lecture. 

Tony terrified him because as much as Tony so thoughtlessly gave him--Steve wanted _ more _. 

~*~ 

“Cap?” 

The name jolts him, a little.

It's the name--the title--he had when they first met Peter, a bright eyed MIT grad student too young by far and so reminiscent of Tony it had left Steve off balanced. 

No one but Tony called him that after he was promoted a few months later, and the name wore off on Peter. 

He's watching Steve now, anxious. 

They've been in space for twelve hours, have another sixty before they reach Mars, and then--what. 

What is it SHIELD will do, after Steve shouts into the void? 

"I sent some files to you--personal files from Tony," he hesitates. Chews his lip anxiously. He's so young. So goddamn young. "He'd want you to look at 'em," he says and Steve glances at it. 

"Who went with Tony, when he left Mars?" he asks. 

Peter toggles up the mission specs. 

** _Bruce Banner _ **

** _Princess Shuri_ **

** _Peter Quill _ **

** _Tony Stark_ **

Familiar names, to anyone who'd spent all their life in the halls of SHIELD. 

"What about the AI?" Steve asks, and his voice is pitched low, low enough that Danvers and her crew can't hear them. 

He can still hear JARVIS' petulance on Luna and the worry Peter couldn't quite hide and the menace in Ultron's voice--he shivers and shoves that thought away, refusing to dwell on something he cannot fix. 

"Her name is FRIDAY," Peter says. 

~*~ 

"Does it bother you?" 

Steve glances at her. Natasha's become a familiar presence in their apartment, even when they're not training for a mission or forced together by SHIELD. He wonders, sometimes, what that says on their psych evals. 

"What?" 

"That," she nods at the glowing orb that is JARVIS. Tony is locked away behind soundproof glass, his movement syrup slow but his eyes shining and for a moment, Steve wants a pencil, wants to sketch him, bright with the wonder of his own creation. 

"No?" 

She tips her head at him and says, "Did you hear, what they're planning on doing with it?" 

She always calls Jarvis _ it _. Tony hates it. 

"They're building Luna." 

"The moon's been settled for twenty years, Nat," he reminds her, gentle. He almost says he grew up there, in labs that Earth banned, undergoing experiments that could have killed him but _ didn't _. 

"Not like this. Not like that will allow them to settle it." 

"You hearing something I'm not, Romanov?" Steve asks and she gives him a Cheshire smile. 

"Always," she purrs and slides her tablet across to him. 

A ship is there. 

A ship named _ Defiant _, a man--"They want to go to Mars," he breathes, and a long finger taps the little corner box and the crew specs pull up. 

** _Steve Rogers_ **

** _James Rhodes_ **

** _Tony Stark _ **

** _Natasha Romanov_ **

** _Jarvis _ **

"They want _ us _ to go to Mars," she corrects gently. "And they want the AI to take us." 

~*~ 

He's dozing, lulled by the hum of the _ Avenger _ and the quiet chatter of Rumlow and Sitwell, when the klaxon sounds, jerking him awake like nothing else can. 

He can feel Bucky's blood on his hands and Tony's panic so thick it was almost a taste on the back of his throat and Natasha, Natasha--

He blinks and the memories recede. 

"_ Four _ , come in," Carol says. Staticky silence comes back and Peter twitches. " _ Four _ we are registering your distress call, come in." 

Silence. 

It stretches and stretches and he thinks Peter will snap, break it first, but--"Rumlow, plot an intercept." 

"Captain!" Peter almost shouts. "We are on a priority mission from SHIELD--"

"A priority mission that you won't tell me shit about, right, kid? I asked--I don't got clearance. But I can trot Commander Rogers across the galaxy and I can let Dr. Stark's protege tag along and I’m not an MIT educated wunderkind but I can make some educated guesses." 

She pauses and the silence thickens, a still kind of tension settling over Peter, a fury Steve has never seen before. "Kid, you either tell me what the hell is so damn important on the ass end of the 'verse--or you sit down and let me follow galactic space regs and answer the distress call." 

Peter's mouth thins and Steve--Steve reaches up and touches his arm. Drags him back to his seat. "It's a med ship, kid. We can't ignore that. _ She _ can't ignore that." 

"Thanks for your blessing, Commander," Danvers answers, dry as the Martian deserts. 

Peter is pale and quiet but he subsides, waiting impatient at Steve's side. 

"He isn't ok, Cap," Peter whispers, so soft Steve almost misses it, and he looks down to see tears on the kid's face. 

Fear and tears. 

He wraps an arm around his shoulders and holds him close and glares when Rumlow smirks at them.

And wonders--what the hell happened since he left space? 

~*~ 

The _ Four _ is sleek and lovely, sharp lines and futuristic in a way that used to drive Tony up the wall. It's a science vessel and as _ Avenger _ approaches, Steve sees the little insignia--a four wrapped in a metal circle and his lips thin. 

Reed Richards and his merry band of insanity never is a good idea to medal with. 

"Rumlow, you're with me," Carol says. "Sitwell, you have the--"

"Captain," Rumlow protests. "You and I both go--who pilots _ Avenger _ if we run into trouble. Jasper doesn't know the con panel well enough." 

"I'll go," Peter says, his voice vibrating sharp between them. "Let's just get it over with." 

Steve almost argues. Almost yanks Peter back into his chair and orders Rumlow to follow his damn orders. 

But he's doesn't have the authority to do that and he doesn't think Peter would listen. 

"Be careful," he says, instead of arguing and Peter gives him a tight smile. 

"I'm always careful. Let's just get it done." 

~*~ 

SHIELD loved him.

It wasn't just that he was Tony's boyfriend or that he was a brilliant tactical mind. 

He was Erksine's creation, a blend of science and medicine putting together a broken body and recreating something so perfectly suited for space that in twenty years working for SHIELD, he never once failed a physical or psych eval. 

Even when he was so angry that he wanted to burn SHIELD to the ground, when he was so heartbroken and _ hurt _ that staying was no longer an option--SHIELD wanted him. 

That he stood shoulder to shoulder with Tony Stark only made it better. 

His rise through the ranks wasn't just fast--it was meteoric. He knew the skeletal Luna better than anyone alive, and when Tony brought JARVIS to the moon--it was Steve who helped him. 

When he installed KAREN in the _ Pepper _ and turned their sights to Mars, it was Steve who plotted their course. 

When they landed, it was Steve who walked on Mars, Tony a single step behind. And for a long time--chasing the stars with the man he loved at his side, he didn't care what SHIELD did, he didn't care that he was the poster child propaganda piece as much as Tony was, he didn't care about anything but the next mission and the next discovery and Tony lit up with wonder. 

And then Nat died and the dream shattered. 

~*~ 

"Open the LivingWill Protocol," he murmurs into his comms. 

"Access code?" 

Steve breathes it out, the date of their first date. 

"Scan entries." 

The file Peter sent him is massive, and he's exhausted just looking at it, the disordered chaos confusing as it streams across his tablet. There's a sense to it, if you know Tony, if you know what the hell you're looking at. 

There are AI's in this, coding for at least twenty, and he wonders, idly, what they're doing here, tucked away asleep where SHIELD can't touch them. There are years of reports, dating back all the way to their first mission together. 

And there are letters, endless letters that were never sent. 

He almost opens them. 

It's not his right--even if his name is on them, they weren't sent and Tony isn't his husband. 

He still wants to open them, still wants to read what he has to say. 

A file catches his eye. 

ULTRON Protocol. 

"Read file," he says, the letters forgotten. 

_ "Ultron was an anomaly. It was a tragedy and it can be prevent, if SHIELD will give the AI time to develop. They're throwing a child into the black and hoping for the best--Ultron was defending himself, as he perceived he should. _

_ We don't know the long term ramifications of having AI in control. We need to see what happens when the have time to grow up and let their coding develop. _

_ I've initiated the Romanov Protocol. SHIELD would have my head for this, but I'm keeping it under SI so they can't do too much. _

_ It's not enough. _

_ I don't think there is _ enough _ . _

_ If I'm right--if Steve is. Ultron is just the beginning." _

~*~ 

"Ready, Parker?" Carol says, a grin bright behind her helmet. Peter is quiet and Steve's stomach tumbles, a mess of nausea as he secures the kid's helm. 

_Natasha smiles up at him. _

"Keep an eye on each other," Steve says, stern. 

Carol nods, and waves him off. He slips through the bulkhead and secures the airlock behind him, listening to the familiar hiss of it as Carol's amiable chatter goes quiet. 

"Airlock secure," he says. 

"Opening the hatch in three. Two. One." 

The hatch swings open and black unfolds endless and for a heartbeat, he wants to be in there, wants the endless sprawl of it, wrapping around him, the void a familiar welcome--

"Commander, we've got an incoming distress signal." 

It pulls him away from the longing for space, for the love he left behind. 

"What?" 

The distress beacon should have cut out by now. 

It should have cut as soon as the _ Avenger _ was in range of the AI's sensors. 

There's--why the _ hell _would they keep sending the SOS out? 

"We've got incoming," Rumlow shouts, and space kind of judders beyond the still open hatch, a ship dropping into their orbit, big and bright orange. 

_ The Children of Thanos _. Rogue mercenaries. 

It doesn't make sense, and--"The AI is still sending," Rumlow says, sharply. "Do we tell the Captain?"

They can't. There is a ship interfering with comms and it always takes a few minutes for the AI to synch with the helmets. 

It doesn't make _ sense _, there was no need to bring anyone else here, not when they already were. 

_ The Children _ swing closer to the _ Four _ and space kind of _ ripples _, and Steve jerks. 

He screams, just before the black lights up, a blue white blinding explosion and the shock of it, the force of the explosion shakes through the _ Avenger _, and he slams into the bulkhead in a burst of white hot pain that almost drowns out the desperate last thought. 

_ Peter _. 

~*~ 

You don't let yourself talk to him, much. 

You don't think you have the right to, anymore. 

You talk to yourself and FRIDAY and to Peter, endless rambles he'll never hear. 

You miss your little genius--and you are unspeakably grateful he didn't come with you. 

He's safe. 

He's safe, and he has the Romanov Protocol. 

When you rest, it is sure in the knowledge that Peter knows. 

You don't let yourself talk to him, much. 

But you do. Sometimes. 

Sometimes, you stare at the giant planet looming in your viewfinder and ignore FRIDAY's gentle prodding, and you whisper, "Sweetheart, you would love it so much. It is so much more than we ever dreamed." 

You love and hate it, being here, where he should be, and you think--

You think that maybe you love and hate him too. 

"Boss," FRIDAY says. "The antimatter, boss." 

You blink at it, at the earnest fear in her voice, and the antimatter engine.

You don't let yourself talk to him, but you think that this--this ticking bomb that you've cracked open--will do all your talking for you. 

"FRIDAY, run the stimulation again, would you?" You straighten and watch the end of the universe play out on the holoscreen. 

"Boss," she says. 

"How is the Walkabout going?" you ask, and she's quiet, sharply disapproving. 

You don't let yourself talk to him, because you have no idea how to explain this to Steve, of all people. 

If you do this right--you’ll never have to. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise the next chapter is coming super soon! Before anyone gets too upset about how I ended that--I haven't tagged this MCD so. Bear that in mind.  
And also--we have bumped the chapter count up by one. Yay!?


	5. Mars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The very talented and lovely loverstar made a cover for the fic! Isn't it gorgeous?? 
> 
> Also no one should apparently trust my initial chapter count cuz I can't actually gauge how long this bastard is gonna be.

[ ](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZQqN4lMPN-8/XeQzavBiq3I/AAAAAAAADyw/L8Tg9oQGR2cICM_vpeSchmdkiQob6ihKgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/ADASTARA.png)

“This is the _Avenger_, requesting emergency clearance.” 

There’s chaos behind him, Rumlow shouting at Rollins and the scent of blood metallic in the air. He wants to twist, to look at them, to _help_. 

Sitwell’s hands are shaking on the control panel and Steve gives him a sharp look. “Keep it together, Captain.” 

He starts, violently, eyes wide and face a sickly green. He isn’t ready for this. No one is ever ready to be shoved into the captain’s seat mid-flight, by demand instead of merit. It happens, though, especially in SHIELD. He flips the comm off and says, sharply, “Get your shit together, Sitwell, or get the fuck outta that seat and help Rumlow.” 

His lips compress, a thin little line, pride stung anger sharp and clear on his face. “Emergency clearance status?” 

Steve exhales. He could do it—there’s a part of him clamoring to take control of the _Avenger_, to pull rank and do what needs doing. But he’s not SHIELD, doesn’t actually want command. 

A staticky crackle comes from the comm, and a familiar voice says, “Skies are clear, Commander. Emergency details?” 

“Two injured responding to a distress call. _Four _and _The Children of Thanos _were both destroyed—transmitting coordinates.” 

“Fuck,” Rhodey breathes. “Ok. Ok, get the _Avenger _to Mars landing. I’ve got the _Asgard _close—I’ll get them en route. Gonna need to debrief when we get you groundside.” 

Steve’s stomach turns. He can still hear that distress call, the eerie glow of the arc reactor going supernova. 

“Lay the course,” he says, and kills the comm because he can’t handle talking to Rhodey now, not when Peter is lying behind him, fighting to live and losing. 

~*~

He slips away when the course is plotted. There isn’t much to do but _wait_ and that’s a frustration in itself, but Sitwell has the flight well in hand, settled with something to _do_ and as the frantic scrambling for medical supplies and sutures eases behind him, the scent of antiseptic and saline replacing the scent of blood, he’s drawn from the con panel and to the med rigs. 

Peter is strapped in, stripped down to his skin, swathed and bandaged. 

“How bad?” Steve asks, staring down at him. He looks so damn _young_. 

“Broken arm and clavicle—think that happened when the blast threw him into the _Avenger_. His suit ruptured—that’s the real issue. Caught some shrapnel in the gut and space burn.” 

Space is the last place in the universe to be injured—and this, these injuries, they weren’t the kind people walked away from. 

“And the captain?” 

She took the brunt of it—even being thrown through the black by an exploding ship, she was trying to shield Peter. She’s on her belly, her back and legs a mess of raw bloody wounds and dry, dead skin—what didn’t end up space burnt was ripped to pieces by the force of the explosion and shrapnel. 

Rumlow doesn’t answer, doesn’t give him a rundown and Steve feels his stomach drop. 

They _can_ survive, is the thing. Mars has the Cradle and a biomed center that rivaled some of the best on earth, that rivaled Erksine’s labs on Luna. 

“Hold on,” he whispers, prays, begs. “Just hold on.” 

~*~

He goes to pieces in the airlock, his breath trapped in his throat. There’s still blood on his hands, and for a moment, looking at the floor splattered with arterial spray and burnt flight suits, he’s somewhere else, and holding Bucky up while he screams, and Natasha is a limp bloody bundle, too broken to put back together. 

He can’t _breathe_. 

He can’t _breathe _and he can’t keep _losing _people. 

Tears burn in his eyes and he collapses there in the bloody wreckage and ruin, fighting to breath, fighting to keep his heartrate even and his hands from shaking. 

_ Get your shit together, Rogers.  _

He blinks back tears and breathes and forces himself to his feet, fingers trembling just a little, as he reaches for his space suit. 

“Prepare to enter atmo,” Rumlow comes across the comm and he exhales and does his job. 

~*~

The _Avenger_ shudders as they sink through orbit. He can see the dull red of Mars beyond the viewfinder and it strikes him, distant and disturbing, that he doesn’t _care._

It’s been over twenty years since the first time he stepped foot on Mars, the first person to walk the red planet, while Tony grinned, wild and triumphant, from the ship. 

The _Avenger_ shudders down, a plume of smoke and red dust and his head snaps up from where he’s staring at Peter when a shockwave slams into the ship. They careen for a moment and Steve shoves himself into the co-pilot seat, snapping control from Sitwell without a word, and wrestling the _Avenger_ back on course. 

“What the fuck, ground?” he shouts. 

“It’s not us, _Avenger.”_

“Jesus Christ,” Rumlow breathes and Steve looks away from the con panel for a moment. 

They _felt_ the Blip, on earth. When the Needle fell, when the rolling power outages snaked across the country and planet. But it’s different than this—this is a physical visible _thing_, a shockwave of white energy hurtling toward them. 

“Rogers,” Rhodey shouts and he kills the power. 

The _Avenger_ plunges down, so fast it rips a scream from Sitwell, so fast they won’t survive, and he can hear it, the roar of the shockwave rocketing toward them, and above that the rattle of the ship shaking apart as it drops through the atmosphere, barreling toward the landing pad. “Commander,” Sitwell screams, shrill with fury and terror and he feathers his fingertips along the con panel, the _Avenger_ shivering below him like a restless horse. 

It’s here. He knows it, knows _Tony_ and what people forget is that SHIELD is what it is because of him and Tony. 

If SHIELD is the power that shaped the universe, they were the pair that gave them that ability, the guiding hand that shaped SHIELD and the _Avenger _is part of that legacy. 

Tony always built in a break in case of emergency contingency. 

“Hold on,” he grits out. 

He flicks the power and JARVIS comes over the con panel, warm and familiar and the _Avenger_ _jerks_, hard enough that Rollins is thrown into the bulkhead and Sitwell throws up, messy and wet, and the terminal velocity slows, slows, slows---

They slam into the landing pad. Hard, a bone rattling force that sends a shockwave of dust and fire out, and he lets out a wordless cry as he wrestles the _Avenger_ to stillness. 

The Blip slams into them five seconds later. 

~*~

“I don’t have to go,” Tony says. 

Steve is still staring at the orders, face lit by holographic glow. 

“Babe. I don’t have to—” 

He sounds frantic, worried and scared, the way that Tony should never ever sound. Steve blinks at him. “Why wouldn’t you go?” he asks, dumbly. 

He knows why. They’ve talked about it for years, since the first time Tony mentioned SHIELD to him—that they’d go together. 

Steve spent two years in Erksine’s lab on the moon, deep under the surface, being pieced back together. And Tony was Howard Stark’s only child, had grown up in orbit. But that was _different_—it was things that happened to them, not things they did. 

They’d do this, together. 

But he’s holding orders, SHIELD directed orders and Tony was being sent to space, to do repairs on the ISS. And Steve—Steve was at least six months from mission ready—too many physicals and psych evals, and training, and not enough time. 

“I don’t wanna do this without you,” he says, because it’s true—it’s the trues thing, maybe for moth of them, that given the choice, they’d do this together. 

“I can’t talk to you, if you go up,” Steve says, and Tony’s gaze flicks to him. 

They’d never talked about it—next of kin and planet bound contacts. Bucky was Steve’s. Rhodey was Tony’s. They’d never listed each other because they had a plan—they would go together. 

Tony stares at him, eyes wide and impossibly sad, and he thinks, this should be the best moment of his life. 

He means to say, _I’m happy for you._

He means to say, _You’ll do amazing. _

He means to say, _You deserve this. _

He means to say a million things and all of them are supportive. What he says instead is, “Marry me.” 

The smile that blooms, small and secretive and utterly happy tell him that whatever he _meant_ to say—he’s said exactly the right thing. 

~*~

A small woman with long dark hair and a longer red coat is waiting for them, side by side with a lean man with silver hair and a foxlike smile that doesn’t meet his eyes. “Commander Rogers,” he says.

Colonel Rhodes is waiting with them, and his expression is crunched in worry. “Med evac is waiting. Where is Peter?” 

Steve’s lips compress and horror cascades over Rhodey’s face, expressive and open and appalled. He snaps an order into the comm and brushes past Steve, into the _Avenger,_ toward _Peter._

“Welcome to Mars, Commander,” the woman says, and there’s something about her voice, something that wraps around him and lulls him, even as every instinct screams. “Walk with us.” 

~*~

Wanda and Pietro Maximoff are SHIELD legend. They were born on Mars, back when it was still held by HYDRA, when human experimentation was fair game in the galaxy, so long as it wasn’t done Earth-side. 

Then Tony and SHIELD arrived on Mars, razed HYDRA’s bases and labs, and the twins were caught in the aftermath. They stayed there, on a dusty red planet stained with their parent’s blood and built Mars into a thriving colony of over eight hundred souls. 

Wanda was cool and reserved, mysterious and hard to approach. Pietro was sharp tongued and sharp smiled and had a fox-like smile and a love for Mars and the colonists so deep it was whispered on in Luna and the halls of SHIELD. 

They said, too, that the Maximoff twins were devoted to each other and they _hated_ Tony Stark. 

Now, following the twins who grew up to be governors of Mars, he has to wonder how deep that hatred ran. 

~*~

They tuck him into officer quarters and he stands in the shower and watches the blood run rusty off his hands, swirl pink in the stall and drain away to be purified and recycled and reused. 

The weight of atmo and the endless days cling to him, a weight he can’t shake, and when the water times out, he stumbles from the bathroom and collapses into the bed, and let’s exhaustion pull him under. 

~*~

“How long did I sleep?” he asks, voice rusty from disuse and eyes gritty. Space and exhaustion and stress are fucking with his sense of time, and he scrubs at his face. 

“Six hours. I’d let you sleep longer, but we have a limited window to send messages to Tony,” Rhodey says, apologetic. “The Maximoffs didn’t want to wait another Sol.” 

He nods, because he agrees with that. He doesn’t want to wait any longer than he has too. 

“I didn’t think he’d do it.” Rhodey says, casually, “Parker—he said he was going to bring you up. But I didn’t think anyone could.” 

“He has the right card to play,” Steve says, tired. He shoves his feet in the boots and looks at Rhodey, expectant. 

“I guess he did,” Rhodey says, thoughtfully. 

~*~

They aren’t together, when Howard dies. 

Bucky says they’re being idiots, but Steve is determined to make thing work with Sharon and Tony—Tony was six months deep into coding his first AI and couldn’t remember that anyone outside of JARVIS existed. 

And then Rhodey calls, and Steve shows up. 

Tony is drunk, vomit on his shirt and eyes rimmed with red, and screaming at Rhodey, when Steve walks in. 

They aren’t together. He kissed Sharon that morning, an absent-minded thing as she swung out into the morning, SHIELD calling, and yet—

He pulls Tony into him, into his arms, where Tony _fits_ and all of the fight and fury drain out of him and he sobs, collapsing into Steve’s arms with a heart-rending sob. Steve holds him, while he cries, and holds him in the shower, and crawls into Tony’s bed and he holds him there, too, holds him until the shivering and tears ebb and Tony whispers his name and drifts off to sleep, exhausted and wrung out. 

“You aren’t together,” Rhodey murmurs, from the chair near the bed, where he’s been watching over his best friend.

“It doesn’t matter,” Steve says softly. “It’ll never matter—I’ll always be there, when Tony needs me.” 

They aren’t together, when Howard dies. 

But they’re together when the funeral begins and ends and all the days after. 

~*~

You listen. 

Space is not silent. You always thought it would be. 

Space is a vast empty noise, space wind and the static of nothing. Stray signals FRIDAY picks up and broadcasts throughout the _Icarus_, ghostly ramblings. 

You listen to those. 

And there are letters. A hundred letters, sent up faithful every day you were in space without Steve. You could recite them, the cadence of his voice a soothing lullaby that is almost as reassuring as the words themselves. 

“FRIDAY, the arc reactor—” 

“Fifty-eight percent, boss.” 

“Down five percent since yesterday,” you muse. She doesn’t respond, but you don’t really expect her to. 

“Resume play,” you murmur, and put your soldering iron down. You’ve done all you can for today—all you can in space, a few million miles away from help. 

_ Hey shellhead. I found a dog. I think we could have a dog…  _

You close your eyes and lets yourself dream of a future you can’t have. 


	6. Mars II

**Mars II**

Sharon Carter is waiting when he walks into SHIELD's Mars HQ. He's startled, if only because the last time he saw her, she was in DC, serving under Hill and Fury. She stands there, pristine in white on a red dust planet and her smile is chill, a hint of anger in her bright beautiful eyes, and his heart sinks. 

“Sharon,” he starts and she straightens, shark sharp smile and thin lips. 

He left her for Tony and now she’s his lifeline to him. 

“Commander Rogers,” she says. “If you’ll sit down, I’ll let you know how this will work.” 

~*~ 

Rhodey isn’t there, when SHIELD gives him his orders. 

He stares at the paper, and then up at Agent Carter, and back again. “Sharon--”

“Agent Carter,” she says, sharp and cold and he closes his eyes. Bites back the fury rising on his tongue and shakes the damn paper in her face. 

“What the fuck is this?” 

“That,” she says, placidly, “is what SHIELD has authorized you to communicate.” 

“This is bullshit--” 

“If you deviate,” she says, and there’s a current of dark amusement in her tone that he hates, “You will be sent back to Earth without any further attempts made. SHIELD isn’t playing, Rogers--you fall in line, or you take your ass home.” 

~*~ 

He gets three hours before he has to report in and reach out to Tony. 

He takes himself to the med wing, and finds Peter. The boy is wrapped in bio-bandages and covered by the cradle and even though he knows Peter is in his early thirties now, a lifetime away from the young man he met on Luna so long ago, that’s who he sees, looking down at him. 

A child playing in the space race, fighting to prove himself in a world that was dangerous and built for dying. 

That’s who he sees, and he sits next to the Cradle, and if he weeps, no one sees it but him. 

Before he goes, he presses a kiss to his fingers and to the glass dome. “I’ll bring him home, kid,” he says, gentle, promises. 

He leaves, and hopes he isn’t lying. 

~*~ 

The first time Tony goes into quarantine, Steve is left on the outside, astride his Harley with tears on his face and a cheap ring on his finger. 

There are promises and vows still bright in his ears and he isn’t Tony’s emergency contact, still, that’s always going to be Rhodey, but he’s listed as spouse on all the forms that matter, listed on his med forms, and when Tony is given phone privileges, it’s his phone that will ring. 

It’s not everything he wants. He  _ wants _ to be in there with him, strapped into the Challenger and soaring into space with him. 

Bucky nudges him and Steve blinks himself back. “He’ll be ok,” Bucky says, his eyes glued on the gate still. 

Steve leans into him, and says, “They both will.” 

Bucky’s smile is dim, weak and frightened--it’s rare that he sees his brother like this. He’d thought all the soft vulnerable edges in Bucky had been filed away during the war, during the years HYDRA had held him. 

He wonders if Sam ever sees this side of Bucky. 

He remembers Tony’s fingers in his hair and the gentle way his thumbs had brushed aside Steve’s tears and thinks--Sam has. 

Sam is Bucky’s Tony. 

~*~

They take him to a small room, red tint walls on all sides. It's been corrugated to catch and throw his transmission, a science he remembers from Tony's rambles and midnight binges, but had never really understood. 

It feels strange, sitting in the midst of it. Last time he'd been on Mars, they hadn't had this kind of infrastructure, hadn't needed it. 

He sits in a little room and on the other side of the glass divide, Sharon Carter and James Rhodes stare at him. 

Hope and fury fill up them and his chest, and he stares at the paper that is what he's supposed to say, useless words that mean nothing. 

On earth, in a box he only opens once a month, is a pile of letters, all the things he would say and can't, all the things he's wanted to tell Tony in the past five years since he flew away on the  _ Icarus _ and left Steve on earth to twist in his grief and guilt. 

"When you are ready, Commander," Sharon Carter says, and her voice is demanding, confidant and imperious, and everything he has always hated about SHIELD. 

Rhodey watches, eyes wide and guarded and hopeful and he can't see the Colonel, the trusted SHIELD pilot, he can only see the man who stood beside Tony at their wedding, who threatened him when they first got together, who punched him the first and second and third time he broke Tony's heart and bought him a beer when Tony left Steve with divorce papers and--

He closes his eyes and picks up the paper and begins to speak. 

~*~ 

“This is Commander Steve Rogers, on behalf of SHIELD, attempting to make contact with the  _ Icarus _ . Dr. Stark, if you are receiving, please respond. The  _ Icarus  _ is causing a planet disturbing energy surge--it is imperative that this Blip is addressed. Dr. Stark if you are receiving, please respond."

~*~ 

"Why don't they connect to his AI?" Steve demands and Rhodey shakes his head. 

"FRIDAY went offline." 

A shiver of fear snakes down his spine. "Like Ultron?" 

~*~

"This is Commander Steve Rogers, on behalf of SHIELD, attempting to make contact with the  _ Icarus _ . Dr. Stark, if you are receiving, please respond."

~*~ 

"What happens when we do make contact?" 

Steve looks at Rhodey, pale and gaunt, the lines of stress around his mouth more and more pronounced every day. 

Sharon Carter is running late. The window to transmit will close, if she doesn't hurry. 

A mean, petty part of him thinks she wants it to. 

"What do you mean?" 

"I mean," Steve says, slowly, "What will they do if Tony doesn't shut down the arc reactor?" 

~*~ 

"--attempting to make contact with the  _ Icarus _ . Dr. Stark, if you are receiving, please respond." 

~*~ 

"This isn't working!" he screams. 

Sharon Carter stares back, cold and remote and unaffected as the Blip ravages Mars beyond the walls of their tiny booth. 

~*~ 

"Dr. Stark, if you are receiving, please respond." 

~*~ 

"They want to pull the plug," Peter slurs, his eyes bright and his hands clumsy. 

"It's not working, so they want to pull the plug." 

Steve's lips tighten. 

~*~ 

"Please respond." 

~*~ 

The loose panel is barely moving, a bolt shaken free when clearing atmo. It's not anything that requires their real attention--protocol dictates that they go in pairs for a spacewalk this far from airlock, or he'd still be tucked in bed with Tony. 

He can see Tasha, her movements slow and indistinct, and her voice a constant Russian murmur in his ear. 

Beyond the  _ Valkyrie _ , Mars glows red and beautiful. 

There's a hiss and crackle in his comm, and he frowns, glances at Bucky and then twists to look at the airlock, because the comms shouldn't be shorting--

He doesn't see it. 

He  _ feels _ it, the concussive force of the explosion, slamming into him. From the corner of his eye, he sees Bucky, yanked by the tether, and he feels the sharp tug of it, like Bucky is  _ caught _ , and then a scream, so primal and pained he doesn't recognize it as human, and the tether gives,  _ gives _ , and Bucky slams into him. 

He's screaming, and there's blood, red and round and freezing in space--

Bucky's arm is sheared off, the space suit a gaping hole. 

Steve slams a nanite pack over the hole, and shoves them both toward the airlock, screaming, "Ultron, mayday, mayday, assistance required!" 

Nothing happens. 

He slams into the airlock door and it doesn't give, doesn't move. Across the comms, silence crackles, cold and ominous. 

Through the tiny window, he sees the camera inset into the wall, staring unblinking and unfeeling. 

~*~ 

“Commander Rogers, tomorrow will be the last attempt made. If it fails--we’ll assess other options for ending the Blip.” 

He stares at Sharon and closes his eyes, counting because otherwise he will scream. “Sir, wha other options are there. Isn’t that why you brought me in--because those  _ other options  _ had been exhausted?”

“That’s above your clearance,” Sharon says, sweetly, and he hates her, hates her so badly his hands tremble. 

“You have two more attempts, Commander,” Fury says. “Make them count.” 

~*~ 

“This is Commander Steve Rogers, on behalf of SHIELD, attempting to make contact with the  _ Icarus _ . Dr. Stark, if you are receiving, please respond.” 

The paper he’s long since memorized crinkles in his hand and he shakes his head. Balls it up and throws it down. 

“Tony, it’s me. They got me here, in one of your long range rooms. I keep thinking--I know how this science works. I don’t remember though. I remember you tellin’ me about it, and I remember--” he closes his eyes, because he can’t see her there, fury writ on her face. He closes his eyes and he can see Tony, lit by stars, that first night, and the million nights that followed, and the glow of holoscreens brightening his face. 

“I remember you talkin’ and I remember thinkin’ I loved you. You were manic and hadn’t slept in three days. There was a smear of grease on your forehead and some bit of nonsense DUM-E got stuck in your hair, and you were so damn beautiful, I couldn’t even hear what you were sayin.” 

“Do you remember that, sweetheart? When you were talkin’ and I was just starin’ at you--you always stopped and stared at me, and it’s the only time you ever blushed, like you could never quite see what I was seein’.” He laughs, softly, “Only thing prettier than the stars I ever saw was you, Tony.” 

The air is still, heavy with his words, and he smiles, rests his head against the table and says, “I built the house. The one we talked about. I bought one, first, and then I built it and--it’s good. You’d like it. There's room for the bots, and for your workshop and good light for my studio, and the view of the stars, baby, it’s better than anything but our place on Luna. I wake up there, and I still want you to wake up with me. I fall asleep staring at the stars, and I hope you can see them too.” 

He knows how he sounds. 

He knows he’s spilling too much, bleeding out on the interstellar waves, and he doesn’t give a fuck. 

“I love you, Tony. I know--you gave me an out, even though I never asked for that. I ever know why. But I love you. I always have. I think I always will.” 

“Sweetheart. You come home, and I swear to you. We’re gonna fix this. But you gotta come back, Tony. You can’t leave me like this.” 

“Please, baby, please come home.” 

He’s aware of his breathing and the tears on his cheeks and Sharon standing pale next to Rhodey. 

His heartbeat is too loud in his ears, and he wants to scream in the silence, and--

“Transmission detected,” JARVIS says. 

~*~ 

The beauty of space is the silence. All your life, the world was too loud, your thoughts were too loud, your father’s expectations and all of SHIELD’s--they were too  _ loud. _

Space is silent. Even when Bucky was dying and Natasha was a limp dead body, space was silent. 

You remember your house on Luna, the space you shared with Steve and your bots, the noise in it, the laughter and Steve’s off key humming, and Bucky’s voice when he visited, you remember the sound of DUM-E and U, and later, Peter. 

You remember Natasha’s low husky morning murmur. 

You listen to Steve’s voice for two weeks, the same meaningless words in a beloved voice and you ache, ache to reach out, to reach  _ back. _

And then the meaningless words fall away, and  _ his _ words fill up the silence, fill up  _ space _ and breaks your heart again. 

You reach for the transmitter and whisper, “Steve.” 


	7. Space II

**Space**

"Transmission detected," JARVIS says and his heart flips, trips, and he twists to look at the little booth. 

At Rhodey and Sharon, one blazing with hope, the other brusquely professional. They're talking, heads dipped together, bent over the comm panel and he's being left alone, with staticky thoughts and silence to keep him company.

For a few moments, he's patient, waiting for their attention and orders, but when nothing comes, he calls out, "What is it?" 

There's no response, just a flicker of a glance from Rhodey. 

There's a hint of worry in his gaze, and it makes Steve's stomach twist unpleasantly. "What's going on?" he says, again, louder. 

Nothing. 

He grabs the comm from the little table and hurls it at the glass. 

Sharon doesn't do anything as satisfying as scream, or jump--she just blinks at him, cool and collected and not even a hint of her anger seeping through. 

"That will be all, Commander. You are dismissed." 

"What does it _mean_?" he demands. 

"You do not have clearance for that, Commander." 

Steve's lips tighten, furious, that hot rush of betrayal that is so familiar in SHIELD's wake. "You're--"

"Carter, he deserves--"

"You are dismissed, Commander. SHIELD is grateful for your assistance." 

Her smile isn't mean, isn't angry, isn't anything but blankly polite, and infuriating all the same. 

~*~

There is blood under his nails and Tony won't look at him and there's a body shaped lump in the hold, and he is angry, angrier than he's ever been in his life. 

"You can't be serious," he says, his voice flat. 

"The mission comes first, Commander Rogers. You of all people understand that." 

Sharon Carter is dressed to the nines, a sharks smile on her pretty lips, and fury in her bright bright eyes. 

She'd always looked at him with fury, after he ended things with her and married Tony. 

"Bucky--" 

"Is being transferred to Cho's care aboard the Valiant and will be returned to Earth. You have your orders." 

He looks at Tony, but Tony isn't looking at him. 

It's been four days since Ultron's attack, and there's blood under his nails and Tony refuses to look at him. 

"Fuck the mission," he snarls and Carter's smile grows teeth. 

"You disobey, Rogers, you'll be court martialed. You'll never see the black again. Are you ready for that?" She flicks a look at Tony. "Is he?" 

Tony's hand is gentle and strong and a silent betrayal on his elbow, pulling him back. Reminding him of his damnable _duty_. 

"Give Romanov a space funeral," Carter says. "Three weeks to finish the mission." 

Three weeks to stand in a tomb, to work with a man who couldn't look at him, to trust a murderous AI with their safety. 

Three weeks with no word on Bucky's chances of survival. 

He bites the inside of his cheek bloody. 

"You're dismissed, Commander." 

~*~ 

"What are you going to do?" he asks, still staring at Sharon, and Rhodey stiffens. 

"That is above your clearance." 

"What are you going to do, Carter?" he screams, and it's so sudden, such a _break_, she flinches. 

He doesn't care, just slams into the glass divider, batters it. "_What are you going to do?_ How will SHIELD contain this, huh? He's a billion miles from Earth, accidents happen in space all the time, don't they--how's it gonna go, Carter--_what are you gonna do_?" 

He's hysterical, screaming and his fists are bloody on the glass, and she's standing there, pale and untouched, shaken but steady, and Rhodey's staring, staring like he's never seen Steve before. 

Maybe he hasn't. 

Maybe no one has. 

Steve only let Tony and Bucky see this side of him. 

"You're going to kill him, aren't you," He snarls and Rhodey's eyes flick, wide and startled to him. 

"That is above your clearance," Carter says, icy cold. 

"He's my _husband_," Steve snarls. "I have the right to know." 

She smiles, and it feels like a knife twisting. "Not anymore, darling. He divorced you." 

She flicks her fingers and he feels the door behind him opening, hears the clatter of boots and her smile widens a fraction before rough hands close over his arms, and drag him back.

He doesn't fight it. 

The fight is gone. 

She's right. He doesn't belong here, not really. Tony threw him away for a ten year mission to somewhere no one had ever been before, and he's a man grasping at ghosts and memories. 

He's hauled away by security and Carter's smile fills up his gaze and Rhodey's worried eyes are a starbright flicker in the dark before they're gone. 

~*~ 

Mars security personnel dump him in a calm room.

It's not necessary--he's already raged and shouted and bled. There's nothing this room of shifting skies and soothing voices and trickling water will do that he can't find in front of a weighted bag with tape on his hands. 

SHIELD doesn't like that, though. 

He forgot. They want peak physical condition but utter compliance, perfect obedience. 

He laughs, a high hysterical sound, even to his own ears. 

They were SHIELD's best and brightest and the furthest thing from the ideal SHIELD demanded that it was laughable that they ever even made it into space. 

"Let me out," he says and the door stay stubbornly closed. 

"You're troubled, Commander. Please avail yourself of the calming facilities." 

He bares his teeth in a bloodless snarl. "Fuck your calming facilities."

"Response recorded." The computer beeps and then, cool and ever familiar, "Please complete your psychological evaluation." 

"My psychological eval, huh? You wanna know how I feel?"

The computer waits, eternally patient. "I want out of this fucking room!" he shouts and the computer beeps. 

"Response recorded." 

He throws the chair and the screen of wildflowers and blue skies shatters into a distorted image and he screams, wordless fury. 

~*~ 

When the door opens, he’s sitting collapsed against the wall of the calm room, his bloody hands dangling from his knees. The walls are shattered, the single chair a splintered mess. 

Wanda Maximoff lifts and eyebrow, all unimpressed disdain. “You’re husband will pay for this,” she says, and he laughs. 

“He isn’t my husband,” he rasps. “And I can pay for my own damage.” 

She considers him for a long time, and then, “Walk with me, Commander.” 

It’s strange, walking with Wanda through the halls of Mars, strange to see the looks of reverent awe her people tip toward her, the way they step aside for her and Steve following in her wake. 

“It’s unusual, no? For you to not be the center of attention,” Wanda says, softly. 

Steve flicks a look at her, sees the hint of a smile tugging at her lips and he shrugs. “I got used to people not knowing who I was, the past few years.” 

“And are you returning, now? Or is this merely for him?” 

“I don’t need the stars,” he says, seriously. “I just need to bring Tony home.” 

She pauses, and stares at him, her gaze deep and searching. “My brother thinks I should allow it to happen.” 

Steve tenses, and she smiles. “But I think--what SHIELD will do to stop the Blip will hurt Mars as much as Stark did when he razed Hydra from the surface.” 

“He didn’t--”

“He killed my parents. Did you know?” she’s walking again, and doesn’t wait for his response. “His drones and his weapons destroyed HYDRA, but they didn’t take care to separate the civilians, the scientists that HYDRA demanded and blackmailed into service. They only killed, indiscriminate.” 

“Tony never wanted that,” Steve says and Wanda smiles, tight and mean. 

“What he _wants_ will not bring my parents back, Commander.” She opens a door and beyond it, Peter is lying in a white bed, Rhodey sitting next to him. “I will be back in ten minutes. Make your goodbyes brief, Commander.” 

~*~ 

“I’m so sorry, kid,” Steve murmurs, sitting next to the Cradle. 

“I’ll be fine,” Peter insists. “But I can’t go with you.”

“Are they sending--”

“They’re sending the _Avenger,” _Rhodey says. “Sitwell, Rollins, Rumlow. They’re going to bring him home.”

Steve looks at him, at Tony’s best friend, at the man who has made a career of following orders and following Tony. 

“Do you honestly believe that?” he asks.

~*~ 

He’s doing survival training with Bucky and Sam when he gets the call. 

It’s Maria Hill, brusque and impersonal and with the barest hint of apology in her eyes. 

“We have a problem.” 

By the time they get back to SHIELD, the news is even worse. There’s evidence that Tony’s shuttle burnt up in atmo, and there’s evidence that Tony’s shuttle is off course, out of power and drifting. 

“Do we think he’s in hostile hands?” Bucky asks, grim and demanding the one thing Steve can’t bring himself to ask. 

The three years Bucky was held by HYDRA was bad enough--he doesn’t know exactly what to do if Tony is taken. 

“We don’t know,” Hill says. “And at this point, we’re considering calling off the search.” 

Steve jerks, and her eyes are sad when she looks at him. “It’s been a month, Steve. He can’t survive that long, you know that.” 

He doesn’t argue. 

Doesn’t say that Tony can survive anything. 

Doesn’t say that it doesn’t _matter_ if he survives or not. 

He keeps his mouth shut and lets Bucky and Sam take him home and he curls in a bed that smells stale, around a pillow that holds only the faintest trace of Tony and cries, silently. 

The message when it comes, is one short sentence, and it does more to reassure him than anything Hill or Bucky or Sam has said or done. 

_I’ll bring him home, Cap._

He clung to Rhodey’s message and Tony’s pillow and waited. 

And three months later, Rhodey brought him home. 

~*~ 

"What exactly are you implying?" Rhodey demands, his voice sharp and Steve scowls. 

"I'm saying that they're lying. They used Peter to get me here, and they curtailed everything I tried with Tony and when we did get through to him--did they let you see the transmission. Did they lock it behind all of SHIELD's firewalls and call it national secrets? Did they tell you what the rescue plan is? Are they even talking about letting you participate?" 

Rhodey stares at him, eyes wide and scared furious. 

"SHIELD _lies_," Steve says, and there's a desperation in his voice that shakes him, a desperation he isn't sure Rhodey will listen to. "And they're lying now. The question is--what are you gonna do about it?" 

"What do you think I should do? This isn't like the Ten Rings, man, I can't just go AWOL and search space--this thing is killing people back home." 

"Then help me help him," Steve says. 

Rhodey stares at him, and it's Peter who says, his voice scratchy and worried, "What do you need?" 

Steve feels the tight band around his chest loosen, just a little. Just enough. 

"A distraction," he says, and Rhodey sighs. 

~*~ 

"You won't have long," Wanda says. They're bouncing across the surface of Mars in a small rover, and she's dressed down, in tight jeans and a shirt that hangs a little to big on her, like she stole it from Pietro. Her long hair is pulled away from her face and she looks impossibly young, too young for the leadership of this planet. "You follow the tunnels. Get into the ship before it reaches upper atmo, and you'll be fine." 

Steve snorts. Riding the outside of a rocket into space wasn't even in the realm of fine. Wanda flashes a grin, mischievous and pretty and he looks at her, seriously. 

"Why are you helping me?" 

The rover clatters to a stop and Wanda shoves the door open. Mars stretches, brilliant red and utterly beautiful, further than he can see. "Because SHIELD will doom Mars to protect Earth. I learned a long time ago that on Mars, the only ones who care for us are ourselves. I'm not helping you or Stark. I'm protecting my people. Not get your ass moving--liftoff is in thirteen minutes and it'll take ten to get through the tunnels." 

Steve doesn't waste time on thanks or questions that neither of them care about. 

He goes. 

~*~ 

When they’ve cleared atmo and the ship isn’t rattling around them, when he’s fallen into the _Avenger _as it rockets toward Neptune, he realizes, abrupt and terrifying, that they were right. 

Wanda and him and all the unspoken fears. 

The nuke sitting in the _Avenger’s_ cargo bay and Rumlow, sliding across the bay with a furious grimace and a gun in his hand. 

“You shouldn’t be here,” Rumlow says and Steve smiles, tight and cold. 

~*~ 

There’s blood in the cargo bay, splattered across the nuke, and three dead bodies strapped to the walls. 

A gun in space is probably the worst idea he’d ever heard, and Sitwell’s brains splattered across the comm panel supported that. Rollins and Rumlow died messier and harder, and Steve sits in the captain’s chair, and stares at the blood on his hands. 

“I’m sorry,” he says into the comm, space crackling around him and his heart pounding. “I didn’t mean--I didn’t want to hurt anyone.”

Silence answers him and he squeezes his eyes shut. 

“I’m so sorry.” 

~*~ 

It takes twenty one days to reach Neptune.

Twenty one days of blood on the comm panel and bodies in the hold, of a bomb that is meant to kill his husband, of worry and fear and utter isolation.

He's a billion miles from anyone but Tony with no promise that Tony is even alive.

Space, he finds, when you're alone and lost in the black, a microscopic spec in a universe so vast the edges cannot be traced--space is terrifying.

He has spent years in space, was the first man to walk on Mars, spent most of his childhood in an underground bunker on the Moon--space is more his home than Earth has ever been, the weightlessness and vastness a familiar blanket.

But this is not comforting. It wraps around him and squeezes too tight, a choking gasping thing and for the first time in all his years in space--

Steve Rogers breaks.

~*~

In the vast loneliness of space, time loses all meaning.

He drifts sometimes, strapped to the hull of the ship and dreams of dark bright eyes and a quick smiling mouth, of Tony sprawled naked and beautiful in their bed, wearing love bites and fingertip bruises. He dreams of a bloody body broken in his arms and a cold voice offering empty apologies. He dreams of a long winding road in the mountains and his feet against the pavement, and Bucky’s scream when his arm sheared away.

He dreams of exploding stars and soft hair beneath his hands and Rumlow’s dead eyes and wakes to alarms and empty black and a void so deep he thinks it might swallow him.

Sometimes, he thinks that it did swallow Tony.

~*~

“ULTRON,” Steve screams. “ULTRON, override code alpha cappa foxtrot two niner niner six.”

“Invalid code. _Valkyrie _lockdown protocol initiated.”

“Fuck,” he screams, slamming a fist on the hull. Bucky sways at his side and he twists. The airlock won’t open, not for thirty-six hours or until Tony overrides the malfunctioning AI.

And Bucky is dead weight, passed out at his side.

“Nat, get to the landing pod,” he orders, and twists Bucky in the right direction.

It’s safe.

It’s safe and JARVIS runs the landing pod, not ULTRON, they’ll be _safe._

Natasha is hanging, limp, from the bot’s arm.

He thinks, nonsensically, of the time Rhodey brought home a box of kittens, of the one DUM-E dangled from his claw, the way it hung limp and boneless before Tony rescued it.

“Nat, come in.”

Staticky silence comes over the comm and she doesn’t move, held still, limp and boneless.

“Nat, come in,” he says, again, his voice breaking.

He keeps trying, the whole way to the landing pod.

He only stops when she’s in his arms, the hatch secure behind him and her blood seeping under his fingernails.

He screams then, and it echoes and echoes and echoes, and no one hears it.

~*~

He thinks a lot, in the long days between Mars and Neptune.

About Natasha and Bucky, about Sam falling from the Needle, and Peter being shaped into the next genius for SHIELD to use up and throw away.

He thinks about the Romanov Protocol and Tony.

He thinks most of all about Tony.

~*~

You watch.

“Boss,” FRIDAY says, infinitely gentle.

“Not yet, babygirl,” you murmur. There’s a blip on the radar, a ship on course to you, and you know the odds.

You grew up in the heart of SHIELD, you know they’d neutralize a threat rather than bring you in. They have your tech, they have your Peter—_you_ are no longer necessary.

But you remember Steve, his voice reaching out across the empty void of space, raw and bright and so goddamn hopeful and you wait.

The Romanov Protocol is prepped and waiting and you think, it would be best.

After the _Valkyrie _and JARVIS’s on Luna, after the _Icarus_—it would be best.

Still.

You watch.

You wait. 


	8. Neptune

**Neptune **

Time loses meaning. 

Time loses meaning and weight loses meaning. He floats in a midst of nothing, and loses himself, the way that he never has, in a way that terrifies him. 

He breaks, the way he has never broken before. 

The stars are beautiful. That is what he knows, what he’s always known, what he’s built his life on and around--a love of the stars and a love of Tony Stark. 

Here, Tony lingers beyond his reach, and the stars are a constant, terrifying, beautiful companion. 

~*~ 

He’s sleeping when the  _ Avenger _ beeps, and he blinks awake to the mild alarm. Neptune is a giant, beautiful orb that hangs in his view, obscures the stars and the black, a brilliant backdrop that’s jarringly gorgeous. 

“Report,” he whispers through chapped lips. 

“Approaching Neptune. On an intercept path with  _ Icarus _ . All communication unsuccessful.” 

He blinks, and looks away from the giant planet to find the ship. 

The  _ Icarus  _ hangs in space, a flightless bird. There’s a blue glow coming from her engines, and he frowns at it. 

He knows SHIELD ships, knows how their repulsor engines work, knows how  _ that _ ship should look--and that isn’t it. 

“Status?” 

_ “ _ There is an unfamiliar energy signature coming from the  _ Icarus. _ ” JARVIS hesitates, then, “It is similar to that of the Blip.” 

He nods. “Can we dock?” 

“Negative, Commander.” 

Steve smiles, a small thing that’s more rueful than amused. It wouldn’t do to make this easy. 

“Fine,” he murmurs. 

~*~ 

Tony comes home with a puppy and a file of papers, and he thinks, if he’d been smart, he would have known. 

“What do you wanna name him?” Tony asks, watching Steve tug a rope across the floor, watching the little bundle of fur chase it. Steve grins, flicks a look at him. 

“Harley,” Steve answers, and Tony’s face does something, something that makes him twitch, away from the puppy named for a boy they both love, into the arms of the man he can’t live without. 

Tony presses the papers to his chest, and it stops him, dead. 

They’re thick, stiff, and he glances at them, just long enough to know. 

“Don’t do this,” he murmurs, and Tony--

Tony is crying. Silent and beautiful, his hands clenched into bloodless fists. “You get half of everything. All my properties, the cars, the kids.”

“I don’t  _ want _ that,” Steve says, desperately, “I want  _ you.” _

Tony shudders, and he knows. 

He knows he’s lost. 

He thinks he knew when Tony wouldn’t speak to him, those endless weeks on the  _ Valkryie.  _

“I won’t ask you to wait for me,” Tony says. “The  _ Icarus-- _ it’s a ten year mission, Steve. I can’t ask you to--”

“I  _ want _ to,” Steve snaps, finally angry, and Tony shakes his head. 

He kisses Steve then, and it’s sharp and biting and desperate, all the things Tony should never be with him, and Harley is left forgotten with a pile of papers, while Steve takes Tony to bed, fucks him with a wild kind of desperation and Tony never does stop crying, even when he’s gasping Steve’s name, coming untouched across his belly, clawing at Steve’s back and begging for  _ more. _

He leaves in the morning, leaves behind a puppy and a divorce decree and a furious, broken hearted ex-husband. 

~*~ 

His fingers tingle and his heart pounds in his chest, faster and harder than it ever has, and all of his control, fine tuned and ironstrong, honed by decades in space and working for SHIELD--it’s all stripped away. 

Here and now, the world and duty and SHIELD all feels like it belongs to someone else, a lifetime away, and all that is  _ here _ is what hangs in front of him. 

A giant planet that sings to him, a siren song. 

A broken ship washed in a brilliant blue glow. 

A broken man who he has never, not once since he met him, stopped loving. 

He shakes, a little, as he slips on the space suit, as he secures his helmet and says, “Open the hatch, JARVIS,” he says, when he’s in the airlock, and all that is before him is everything he’s wanted for  _ five years _ . 

“Safe travels, Commander,” JARVIS says, and he sounds warm, hopeful. Steve smiles, a little, and the hatch opens, and  _ space _ sprawls before him. 

~*~ 

There’s nothing like space. There never has been. 

It’s his great love affair--Tony and space, and now, he gives himself up to it, gives himself up to the weightless nothingness, to the drift and pull of the planet, to the lure of the  _ galaxy,  _ spinning out around him like an endless blanket studded with diamonds. 

He drifts, and it’s endless, and directionless, but purposeful too. 

Because he’s drifting but he’s getting closer to the  _ Icarus.  _

“Commander Rogers,” a cool Irish voice says. She’s startling where he expected JARVIS, but not unfriendly. 

Not abrupt and defensive. 

“You’re a bit far from home, Commander,” the AI observes. 

“Do you think he’d mind company?” 

The AI is quiet for a moment, and then, her voice carefully neutral she says, “I don’t think he’ll mind yours. Come on in, Commander--Boss is waiting.” 

Taking a deep breath and all too aware of the AI’s monitoring his every move, and just how protective of Tony they could be--he obeys. 

~*~ 

The  _ Icarus _ is the best ship that SHIELD ever built. Repulsor tech and cryo for the crew to sleep in, the entire thing is sustained by nuclear energy and run by an AI--by the lilting Irish voice in his ear. It's a research ship equipped with three of Tony's Iron Legion for exploration and a rover bot to be sent into atmo itself. 

It's a technological marvel, something Tony'd been dreaming of since they were college babies and raw recruits, as raw as they ever were. 

He expects something like Tony's lab, at home and on Luna. A wonderland of tech and science that's beyond him, a dozen holos streaming data, and Tony,  _ Tony _ , centerstage, mouth going a mile a minute, music blaring while the rest of the crew tried to manage him. 

It's startling, then, to step into the  _ Icarus _ and silence, so profound it rivals space, so profound his heartbeat thunders in his ears.

JARVIS helpfully flashes the ship's environmental readings and he huffs, reaching for his helmet. 

"Gravity is weird, J," he murmurs, and the AI makes a almost noiseless acknowledgment. 

"Boss is waiting, Commander," FRIDAY says sharply, and Steve exhales, drifting through the narrow corridors and into--

A nightmare. 

It's messy, messy the way their apartment got when Howard was killed--the kind of destructive disregard that came after Jarvis died. 

Plants are spilling out of the bio beds, and there's three cryo tubes shattered against the wall. The holos are dim and still and--

"Tony?" he whispers. 

The form, hunched in the corner, flinches, a tiny, scared thing that makes Steve  _ ache _ . 

~*~ 

Tony was the brave one. 

Tony was the one who threw himself into Steve, eyes bright and happy, as bright as the stars overhead, and kissed him, a desperate sort of hunger sliding into the playful kiss as soon as Steve's hands clenched down on Tony's hips. 

It was Tony who pushed him into bed, after they both passed thermodynamics and quantum physics, and SHIELD accepted their applications, conditionless, and the stars were  _ finally _ in reach. It was Tony who kissed him desperate and hungry and slid down to take Steve's cock in his mouth, who groaned and rode Steve, and they were inside, they couldn't see the stars, but Tony was gilded in the light of the false moon on his bedside table, and his eyes were as bright as any star and his grin was fearless and full of adoration. 

It was Tony who pressed his forehead against Steve's, who inhaled the same air as their classmates celebrated, Tony who held him close, and promised the stars. Tony who suited up next to him and fought their way through HYDRA's exploratory bases to find Bucky, Tony who whispered  _ I love you _ careless and sleepy while they flew to Luna. 

Tony who had been brave, who stepped into the stars, into the black, into love, and dragged Steve along with him, a grin wild and bright on his lips. 

Tony was the brave one, his eyes fixed on the stars. 

Steve only ever fixed his eyes on Tony. 

~*~ 

“Sweetheart?” Steve says, and bright eyes, eyes as bright as the stars flick up, find him. 

They’re wide and scared and Steve stills as Tony shifts. 

“They’re dangerous,” he says, softly, so softly that Steve almost misses it. He eases forward, and Tony’s head tips a little, confused and curious. “Are you real?” 

He asks it innocently, almost childlike, and Steve’s heart does a weird twisting lurch, shatters just a little. “FRI likes to give me something to look at,” Tony confides, a fond smile on his lips before his eyes go soft and unfocused. “But she tells me. Doesn’t she tell me? FRIDAY--” 

“Boss, Commander Rogers is real,” the AI says and it’s almost  _ gentle, _ the way she speaks to him. 

Tony’s eyes widen, and he looks at Steve, something raw and hopeful in his eyes. 

“Steve?” 

Steve swallows and forces a smile he doesn’t feel, something small and rueful, sharp edges cutting up his gut. “Hi, sweetheart,” he says. 

~*~ 

Tony’s hand shakes a little, when it brushes over Steve’s cheek, like even with FRIDAY’s verification, he doesn’t  _ believe _ that Steve is real. 

“You--you said--” 

Steve swallows. He said he’d never fly for SHIELD again. Never go back to space. 

He told Tony and Bucky and everyone who mattered that he was  _ done.  _

“I know,” Steve says, gently. “But someone had to come get you.” 

Tony’s eyes go wide and he sits up, urgent suddenly, disbelief and wide eyed worry gone in his desperation. “Steve, they’re  _ dangerous. _ ” 

“Who, Tony?” Steve asks but he knows, he  _ knows.  _

The green light of FRIDAY’s cameras gleam down on them, silent and watchful, and Steve pulls Tony into his arms--and freezes when he feels something cold and hard in his chest. 

~*~ 

It’s glowing. His hands tremble as Steve comes closer, lit by the eerie blue glow of the circle in his chest, and he knows Tony’s tech, could it pick it out of a thousand systems, anywhere in the universe, and this--this thing in his chest, drawing him in like a moth to a flame, that’s  _ Tony’s  _ tech. 

“There was a explosion,” Tony says, his lips cracked. He licks them, nervous, and Steve’s gaze tracks the motion. “Bruce--he was caught in the blast. It ripped him apart, Steve--and what was left. We didn’t do so well.” 

He shivers. He knew--they all suspected, that the crew was lost. But it’s terrifying to have it confirmed, to know that Shuri and Banner, Quill--they’re  _ gone.  _

“FRIDAY wouldn’t let me die,” he says, and touches the glowing metal ring. It’s a tiny arc reactor, the same massive machine that powers the  _ Icarus  _ and all the ships of SHIELD, scaled down and tiny, pulsing in his chest. 

Tony blinks up at him, eyes bright and wet. “I didn’t want to die out here. Not without seeing you again.” 

~*~ 

His words are heartbreaking and grounding, the solid earth under Steve’s feet, a billion miles from home. 

He came all this way for a man who divorced him, who fled earth and all known planets, while Steve settled into his grief and rage. And now he’s here, and Tony is staring at him with wide, frightened eyes, and it’s easy. 

It’s as easy as breathing, to reach out and touch him, Tony’s skin trembling under his own, and say, “Sweetheart? It’s time to come home.” 

~*~ 

There’s a moment, when Steve is helping Tony with his helmet, when his eyes go lost and far away, and he hesitates, looking back at the dark empty cavern of a ship.

Icarus flew too high, too close to the sun, and fell to his death. It’s only fitting that this ship is a floating tomb. 

“Steve,” he whispers. “The arc reactor--” 

“I know, sweetheart,” he soothes. Because he knows. 

He knows Tony and he knows Tony’s tech, could pick it out of a line of a thousand, in any corner of the universe. 

He knew before Peter Parker sat on waiting on his porch, that the Blip was a ripple of Tony’s tech gone rogue. 

“We can’t stop it,” Tony says, insistent, and Steve smiles. 

“We can.” 

Tony struggles against his hold and Steve’s grip on him tightens, holding on. 

Holding tight. 

Maybe that’s what they got wrong--they let go, drifted away from each other, when they should have held on tight. “FRIDAY tell him.” 

She does. 

~*~ 

He clips them together before he signals to FRIDAY, the tether pooled on the ground between them. The  _ Avenger  _ isn’t far--it’s waiting, and their  _ life _ is waiting, just beyond a billion miles of endless black. 

“Ready?” he asks, breathless the way that space and Tony have always made him. 

Tony looks at him, and his eyes are sad, almost heartbroken. JARVIS murmurs in his ear, and FRIDAY is silent, the lights of the  _ Icarus  _ flashing the only sign of the ongoing countdown. 

“Time to go, Boss,” she says, quietly insistent, and Tony’s lips tighten. 

The hold opens and they step out into the black. 

~*~ 

You like the weightlessness of space. 

There’s a moment, when you’re drifting along behind Steve-- _ Steve, Steve, Steve came for you-- _ that you stare at the dwindling shape of the  _ Icarus,  _ at Neptune, beautiful and serene beyond it, and you want to unclip yourself. 

You want to drift away, not tethered to this man and the life with him that you walked away from. 

It almost killed you, to walk away. 

“Steady, boss,” FRIDAY murmurs, a whisper in your helmet, and you close your eyes. 

Steve’s hands shake as he straps you into the cockpit, as he does the same for himself. 

“JARVIS--course laid for Earth.” 

“Of course, Commander. And Sir, it is is good to have you home.” 

You smile, a flicker of a smile, not real, not lasting, but you like it, hearing your first AI, so crisp and fervent, and FRIDAY is a warm pulse in your neck and your chest, and you hear her counting down. 

Around you, the black goes white, and the universe goes supernova, the  _ Icarus  _ caught in a nuclear blast, propelling the  _ Avenger  _ forward. 

Sending you  _ home.  _

“Goodbye, boss,” FRIDAY whispers, a ghost in your ear. 

Your chest aches and your eyes sting, and Steve’s hand finds yours as you hurtle through space. 

You hold on tight. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a short epilogue coming!


	9. Home

**Home**

There is a place in the house--in Steve's house, the house you dreamed about, all those years in space, but never dared hoped you'd see, a place you wanted so badly it  _ hurt _ to think about--that you love best. 

It's a three story monstrosity in the mountains, and you think it's only three stories because Steve built the basement to be your lab, a sign that even when you were a billion miles from earth--he wanted you. 

He waited for you. 

The lab isn't your favorite place, and neither is the sun-drenched studio on the ground floor. Your favorite place in the house is Steve's bed, when the lights are off and the blankets and his arms wrap around you and the stars gleam, bright and beautiful through the massive skylight. 

You stare at them, when he lays you against the sheets that smell stale and familiar, stare at them when he kisses you softly, the same kind of softness that you have felt from him since you first saw him on the  _ Icarus _ . You stare at them as his hands drift over you, strong and sure and bringing you back to life. 

~*~ 

"You wanna see the lab?" he asks you, the second week on Earth. The first is spent in SHIELD's medical ward, and you want desperately to ask where Peter is, why he and Rhodey haven't made their way to your side, but you're scared to, scared to hear the answer. 

There is so much that frightens you, still, but Steve's hand is in yours and that makes everything a bit easier to accept, a bit easier to face. 

"Yes," you murmur, and he smiles, a small thing that makes you lean up to kiss him because there are so many unanswered questions but this is not one of them--

He loves you, he loves you, he loves you enough to come and find you, to bring you  _ home _ . 

He leads you to the basement, to the lab that is bright and beautiful, smaller than the one you built on Luna, but it reminds you of the lab you had in college, when space was still a dream, and Steve was the body wrapped around you in bed and Howard was the biggest demon you had. 

An ecstatic mechanical shriek fills the lab and you smile, wide, wide and free, as your bots, your first AI's, the ones you can love without guilt because they are small and safe and  _ yours _ , come tearing across the lab and you feel, finally, like you are  _ home _ . 

~*~ 

You adjust. 

You both adjust. 

It's not as easy as falling into each other and fucking like you're still college sweethearts dreaming of a universe you hadn't yet discovered. 

It's--missteps. 

It's waking screaming and whispering for FRIDAY. 

It's the claustrophobic fear crawling under your skin when the sky presses too close only ever alleviated by the sprawl of the black beyond the skylight. 

It's Steve reaching for you and you shying away, and his gaze following you but his words trapped behind his closed mouth, it's SHIELD and all of their fucking demands. 

It's the Romanov Protocol, waiting, a giant elephant in a quiet room. 

But--

You adjust. 

You learn to sleep again, in his arms. 

You learn to love the sky. You stop asking for FRIDAY and he stops frowning, when you do. You lean into his touch and his gaze goes back to his art, and SHIELD is relegated to the world beyond these four walls, a world you aren't quite ready to return to, and Steve doesn't push. 

You fight, one night, you and Steve, one of the knock down drag outs that you had in college, about the divorce, about the  _ Icarus _ and the AI's and Natasha--about everything you've never fought about, because you ran away and you think that he might never forgive you for that--

But he kisses you, fierce and desperate, and you wake up to the sound of the shower running, and Harley panting next to you, his fur smelling of wind and rain and wet dog, and you realize--

You'll survive this. You both will. 

~*~ 

Sometimes, when he thinks you are sleeping, Steve will talk. 

It hurts, hearing, but it feels like penance, like you are sacrificing to a pagan god for the privilege of being in his bed, again. 

"You scared me, Tony. You still scare me." 

"I wish you'd tell me why you left me." 

"What are we going to do?" 

"I missed you so much, sweetheart." 

"I don't miss the stars. I thought I would--but I missed you." 

"Sometimes, I think this is a dream. That I'll wake up and I'll be alone again. I don't want you to be a dream, sweetheart." 

You don't ever say anything, when he talks, just stay still and limp in his arms and lets his words wash over you like a slow slicing blade, a warm confession, and you swear to yourself that you will never hurt him again. 

~*~ 

“Will you come back?” Fury asks. 

You've been on earth for six months, have put on some of the weight you lost in space, and you feel--almost--like yourself again. Pepper is so thrilled you're home that you think she might kill you if you wander off into the black again. 

You smile at Fury and shake your head. "I'm done playing in the stars, Director." 

His lips thin. "We need you," he says, sharply. "HYDRA and AIM are pushing past where we can reach. And we  _ can't _ reach, not without your tech." 

You glance at Steve. He's leaning against the counter, arms folded, face blank and you think--you think if you said yes, if you stepped back into the halls of SHIELD and the ships and the black--he wouldn't stop you. 

But you know he wouldn't come for you. 

Not again. 

One miracle is enough. 

"Maybe we shouldn't reach, then, sir," you say. "Maybe what we have--here and on Luna and Mars--maybe it's enough. Let them fight for the black. There's nothing better out there than I've found on earth." 

Fury's lip curls into a snarl and you can feel Hill's disbelief, but you can feel Steve's smile, too, and that--that's all that matters. 

~*~ 

Sam and Bucky come to the house, and you want to hide. 

You spend the first night in your lab, ignoring their feet overhead, and you only emerge when the house is silent and JARVIS says that they have retired for the night. You stand in the dark of the kitchen, and your hands shake as you pour a glass of water, and the black beckons beyond the wide windows, and you can barely breath through the guilt. 

"It wasn't your fault, you know."

Bucky's voice is low and rusty in the dark, and you close your eyes. 

He sounds just like he did when you and Sam found him. 

"I designed him," you say. "My tech caused the Blip." 

I almost killed you both, you don't say. 

"You didn't design him to go insane," Bucky says, softly. "And the Blip--Sam walked away. He didn't die." 

He shifts, and you track him in the window, the shifting metal plates, the long hair, the eyes that track relentlessly through the house. "You make him happy, Stark. If I blame you for anything, it's for breaking his heart. Just--don't do it again." 

You stare after him until Steve steps out of the shadows and draws you to bed. 

~*~ 

When you open the Romanov Protocol, Peter looks at you, his eyes bright and worried. “Are you sure?” 

You nod. “I have safeguards in place. But--” 

“You know that Director Fury will come for you, if you do this,” Peter asks. 

“He can try,” Steve says and you smile. 

“What do you need from me?” Peter asks, and you let out the breath you feel like you’ve been holding since ULTRON killed Natasha. 

~*~ 

You kiss Steve in your bed, wrapped up in his arms and the black night sky bright overhead, and you are  _ home.  _

~*~ 

Peter watches them blink out, PEPPER and JOCASTA and all the rest, the AI’s that run the fleet, that push back the black. His fingers tremble on the holo, and Natasha Romanov blinks at him, beautiful and stern. 

He remembers Mr Stark, shaky and pale, even a year after the  _ Icarus  _ and his return to Earth, remembers Bucky Barnes and the gaping hole where his arm should be, and the  _ Four _ , gleaming in the dark, exploding in a wash of malevolent tech gone awry. 

He thinks of the Blip and all the damage it did. 

He takes a breath and executes the final step, counting silently under his breath.  _ Five. Four. Three. Two.  _

_ “Hello, Peter,”  _ a warm voice says, and he sags. She’s there, blinking in all of the ships, across the fleet, spreading alongside JARVIS on Luna and Mars, a warm steady code he  _ knows.  _ The code Mr. Stark made for him, a decade ago. 

“Hi, KAREN,” he whispers.

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE'RE AT THE END!!!   
Thanks for taking this journey with me! I hope you loved it.   
And I am toying with writing a small story about Sam & Bucky set in this 'verse. Maybe. Stay tuned.


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